Red vs Blue: After the Recon III
by Stelladea
Summary: Two of the most powerful Freelancers are loose, and with them a handful of AIs run amok. The Reds and Blues with a few other comrades along the way fight to take down what remains of Project Freelancer once and for all... but, knowing these guys, they'll screw things up royally one way or another...
1. Reconviction, Part II

"What _now?_" Grif complained.

"Come on, don't just stand there!" I exclaimed, sprinting toward Red base.

Donut, Sarge, Simmons and I took off running. Grif jogged for about thirty seconds before panting heavily and falling behind.

"You... you guys... go on without me..." he gasped. I rolled my eyes and kept sprinting toward the smoke.

Upon closer inspection, the Reds and I realized with some relief that the fire was relatively close to dying. We doused the base in water; by the time we were done, all that was left of the fire was some melted carpet and singed furniture.

The rest of the base, however, was a different story.

"What in Sam hill..." Sarge gasped as we were finally able to focus on Red base's main rooms.

The entrance had been broken down, and every room was a mess of the Reds' personal items. In the kitchen, food had been taken from the fridge, removed from the pantry, and strewn all over the counter and floor. The living room's couches had been overturned and the television unplugged. Simmons' collection of alphabetized DVDs had been taken out, thrown across the ground, and mixed. Donut's refined interior design plans had been destroyed, and he ran around in a panic trying to fix all the decorating.

"My—my curtains!" he moaned as he hugged the now-ruined paisley pink drapery in the living room. "Those were custom-made!"

"Good riddance!" Sarge muttered. He was livid. His weapons had been taken from his bedroom, the ammunition had been removed, and everything was lying across the floor. As we continued exploring the base, we even saw that the weight room had been knocked over, the elliptical machines tampered with, and the treadmills overturned.

"Ells, let's go check the bedrooms," Donut said anxiously, dragging me over to the hallway where they all slept. I peeked inside Grif's room, which was an utter disaster, but then I realized that was how it looked normally. The other rooms, however, looked just about as destroyed as Grif's. Drawers were ripped open, their contents cast across the ground; the closets had been left empty, clothing and pieces of red armor littering the floor like shiny, glowing coals.

Donut's room had not been spared the attack; his pink bed sheets were crumpled and thrown in a corner, and his row of perfumed body lotion bottles had been flung every which way across the room. His eyes almost welled up in tears when he saw that his silk scarf collection had been singed in the fire, and I had to spend a good ten minutes promising him a huge shopping spree before he calmed down.

Finally, we strode back to the living room. Grif had joined us by then, panting and sweating, his face pale from seeing the disaster.

Sarge was fuming. "Who the hell came here while we were gone? Breaking in! That's just diabolical!"

"It happened recently, too," Simmons said, his eyes wide as he checked his computer system. "They hacked in here and checked everything! The plans, records, mission logs..."

"But who is 'they'?" I asked worriedly, helping Donut pick up the now-ruined potted plants.

Simmons shook his head. "I have no idea."

"You... you think it was the Freelancers?" Grif wheezed, sitting on the couch and still catching his breath.

"No... I don't think so," I said slowly. "That doesn't make sense. The fire was too recent. It couldn't have been burning longer than a few hours, and I was with Meta and Tex that whole time. Church was there too."

"She's right," Simmons replied, still scanning through his computer and running a virus scan. "There's no way they could have had time to get here, mess everything up, and leave so fast."

"Well, what did they take?"

The Reds were quiet for a moment, frowning and thinking.

"They... didn't steal anything..." Sarge said finally. "Nothin' at all."

After double-checking the base, our confused suspicions were confirmed. Whoever had broken in hadn't left with any of the Reds' possessions.

"So, what, they just like coming in and ruining interior decorating?" Donut asked bitterly. "Some criminal."

"Well, it's obvious," Sarge huffed darkly. "They were lookin' for something and didn't find it."

"We don't have anything cool!" Grif whined. "We never get anything cool! Why would they come here?"

As the Reds continued to discuss the turn of events, my mind wandered. I decided to go and check the ship in which Wash and I had arrived.

"I've got to go," I muttered, heading toward the door. "I have to go and check the ship..."

"Oh no you don't, missy!" Sarge barked. "Simmons, block the door!"

Simmons jumped up and barred my way; I stared at them, confused.

"What the hell, you guys?" I asked. "I have to go and check to see if our ship is okay!"

"I don't think so," Sarge muttered. "We can't have you runnin' around after having an AI stuck in your brain for hours!"

"What?" I yelped. "Are you kidding me?"

"Yeah," Grif agreed almost guiltily. "We didn't have time to talk at the prison, but God damn, Eleven. Something's weird with you."

"What was with that whole beard comment, anyway?" Donut asked, suddenly concerned as he remembered what I had said.

"Sorry, Eleven, but you aren't going anywhere until you tell us what exactly happened to you," Simmons added apologetically. "When we first met Wash he was about as crazy as we could handle, and he had an AI at one point too. And don't think we forgot about O'Malley and everyone he infected."

I stared at them for a moment, dumbfounded, and then sighed in resignation. "If I tell you what happened, will you let me go and check everything else?"

"If we think you're not completely out of your mind, maybe."

I refused to sit down, so we began cleaning the base as I talked. I explained everything as quickly as possible and managed to escape from the base with their permission after they had decided that I wasn't about to shoot Donut or something.

However, I did conveniently forget to tell them that I still had Gamma in my AI slot. I didn't even want to think about that, much less spread the news around.

After approaching my ship, I realized with surprise that it had been left intact. Either the intruders had not found it, or they had deemed it too unimportant to investigate. I tested the controls lightly, and since the AIs were gone, it seemed to be working relatively well. I was sure that we could get it ready for flight with just a few minor adjustments.

I then made my way to Blue base. Church, Tucker, Wash and Caboose were all panting heavily, holding buckets of water and searching, panicked, for any other fires. Apparently, they had more difficulty in extinguishing the flames and had just finished when I arrived.

"Ells—someone set our bases on fire—" Tucker gasped, patting out some final flames.

I nodded. The Blues hadn't even stepped inside their own base yet. All of their fires had been external. "Come on, we have to go and check inside."

As soon as we all walked in, Wash froze. The Blues rushed forward to check all of their belongings, cursing and swearing; they had received the same treatment the Reds had. Nothing was stolen, but everything was misplaced or broken. While I helped to pick up the living room, I stole at glance at Wash again; he had done nothing but stare, open-mouthed, at the chaos.

"Who did this?" Church demanded, carrying a pile of video game controllers. "They didn't even take anything! They just screwed with our stuff!"

"Do you have any leads?" I practically begged. "There has to be some clue leading to who's been here. Do you guys know anything at all?"

"I do."

Wash had been silently gazing around at the wreckage, his jaw tight. We stared at the Freelancer, whose disposition had grown cold.

"They're coming for me."


	2. Reconviction, Part III

( This isn't exactly an announcement, but more of a tip or recommendation: If you're reading this, I strongly, _strongly_ suggest going over and looking at Chapter 11 [cough cough] of my other current story, _Runner Five_. You won't regret it.

Just trust me. ;)

-Stella

P.S. And yes, there is definitely more where that came from. )

* * *

"W—Wash?" I stuttered, uncomprehending. "What are you—"

"My time is up," the Freelancer said, his voice hard. "I've failed my job."

"No… no, we haven't failed," Church said, shaking his head. "We can still find the AIs. We just need—"

"I don't _have_ anymore time." Wash looked up at us, his face looking almost carved of stone. "I told you before. Command only let me on this mission—let me out of _jail_—to find the AIs. I had a deadline, and I missed it. My… my time is up."

We stared at Wash quietly, horror-struck.

"Command was here," the Freelancer continued, looking around the room expertly. "They trashed the bases looking for the AIs. They didn't find what they wanted, so now they're looking to take the next best thing into custody… and that would be me."

"Well—well, they can't know that we're back," Tucker said logically. "The guys at the prison didn't seem to be upset to see you."

"The guards must have not known that I was going to get arrested yet. The troopers are off telling all the corners of the galaxy that I'm a criminal now. Once they find the prison and figure out that we were there—and that they let us return to Blood Gulch—they'll be back. My guess is that they'll be here by morning to arrest me."

I couldn't speak. Wash couldn't go to jail. Not again. Without looking back at the Freelancer, I turned on my heel and exited the base. Now that the AIs were gone, I had a radio call to make.

"Eleven!" Hale gasped instantaneously as I made the connection. "I've been trying to get a hold of you ever since your line was cut! What the hell has been going on?"

"You tell me!" I snapped, a little less politely than I meant. "I'll tell you everything that happened tonight in a formal report. What's all this about Wash getting arrested again?"

"Unfortunately, Agent Washington's deadline for capturing the AIs has passed. He knew what the consequences were for not meeting the date."

I growled, trying to remain calm. "Those UNSC troopers trashed the Red and Blue bases! Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Because I knew you would have this reaction and get distracted from your work," Hale replied wisely.

"That's not fair!" I sputtered. "They can't expect him to find the AIs so quickly!"

"It is not a matter of what is just and what is not. What we must consider now is that Washington is now a fugitive of the law."

"No—no! We just need more time. This can't happen!"

"I have no control over Command's decisions," Hale replied regretfully.

"What… what do you expect me to do?" I croaked. "Just let them come and take him?"

"Precisely," my superior said. "You will continue the job without the Freelancer. If I remember correctly, that _is_ what you wanted at the start of this mission, is it not?"

I fell quiet for a moment. "It… it was. But I think I—we need him."

"There is nothing I can do about that, Eleven. It is time for you to continue the mission alone."

I swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

When I walked back inside the base, the Blues and Wash were conversing urgently.

"If this is going to work, we're going to have to act fast," Church said. "Personally, I think you're bat-shit crazy, but it's your life."

"We have to stop cleaning, and the Reds have to stop too," Wash commanded, now pacing around the room and messing everything up once more.

"Wait, what's going on?" I asked. "What are you doing?"

Wash didn't stop to look at me. "I'm escaping."

"Uh… what do you mean—"

"We're staging an escape," he repeated shortly. "Let me get the Reds over here and I'll explain everything."

As soon as the Reds had grudgingly trudged over to Blue base, Wash gathered everyone outside.

"I'm not going back to jail," he began shortly, running a hand through his hair. "I won't surrender, and I won't go quietly. That means I only have one other option: run."

As Wash explained his situation, I watched his face closely, my heart sinking. Ever since he had entered the base, his facial expression had hardly changed; it had remained impassive and cold.

I could barely look away. I knew the signs; I recognized this face. It was the same expression Wash had continually worn after the events of Project Freelancer and Epsilon. This was the face of a soldier battling emotions too strong to face consciously. Whatever Wash was feeling—injustice, hatred, the prospects of being locked up again, treated as a criminal and madman—he had hidden it away to a corner of his brain, instead filling his mind with the here and now. I had seen his face, this impassive mask, far too many times back when we had been arguing. He was going to do the only thing he could at this point—the only thing he could manage. His self-preservationist instincts had kicked in, and I knew that his brief span of amiability was over.

"Using how long the fires have been burning and the severity of the wreckage, I predict that the UNSC troopers will be back here to arrest me by morning, and I'll be damned if I let that happen again. So, instead, I'm going to escape. But in order for you to get off without trouble, we need to make it seem like I attacked you and got away. Like I fought you off. Then, I'll leave in the escape pod of the ship Eleven and I arrived in."

There was a moment of silence.

"You know…" Simmons began. "That's definitely against protocol."

My eyes widened and I snapped my head back to look at Wash.

"Protocol?" he repeated bitterly. "I've followed _protocol_ for the majority of my life, and look where it's landed me. Now, you're going to help me escape, or I'll just leave and you can get thrown in jail instead."

Donut shrugged. "I'd be fine with that. The whole situation isn't really fair anyway."

"Well, if you leave, that will make us look better. Our reputations would go down the drain if they found out we were housing a fugitive!" Simmons added.

"So, what do ya need us to do?" Sarge asked gruffly.

"You need to make sure that your bases are messed up, just like they were when we arrived. It's fine if the fires are gone; they'll assume those just died down. But you guys have to make everything seem like you fought me, and then I overpowered you."

The Reds and Blues didn't seem happy about this at all.

"_One_ Freelancer kicking all of our asses?" Tucker replied skeptically. "How could that—" He stopped abruptly as Sarge, Simmons and Grif all glared at him furiously. He laughed nervously. "I… oh. Right. Tex."

Grif sighed. "At least that's actually believable."

"So what happens when they all come and see us at the bases?" Donut asked nervously. "They'll interrogate us for sure!"

"They can't if I've knocked you out."

Wash reached down and unhooked a weapon from his belt, and I groaned.

It was a stun gun.


	3. Reconviction, Part IV

( Oh, and just so you know, Team Tucker and Team Wash t-shirts are NOW AVAILABLE. Just visit my Skreened shop, The Geeky Stuff. My account is Stelladea, of course. I can't post links here, so you'll have to search it. I also have a link to it posted on Eleven's tumblr!

I'll be adding more designs soon! 8D

-Stella )

* * *

Sarge sputtered in rage, while the other Reds and Blues simply gazed at Wash as if he were crazy.

"No damn way!" the Red leader growled. "I am not gonna let some sissy Freelancer stick a needle in my ass!"

"Wash, come on," I pleaded. "There has to be another way. What if we just leave? We could take the portal somewhere. Pretend we never made it home. Hell, you could use the portal to escape too."

Wash shook his head. "I can't risk Command tracking the portal activity and finding me that way. And once those UNSC troopers reach the prison, those guards will tell them where they sent us. They _watched_ us enter Blood Gulch themselves! It would be way too risky to let all of you leave. Besides, if all of you left, they might think that you're in with me and you'd get in trouble too."

"Oh, so now you're worried about us?" Tucker scoffed. "Yeah, like I'm gonna believe that one."

"You know, I should just let you get in trouble," Wash retorted. "That would slow down the troops on my tail anyway."

I could see a fight coming on as Wash and Tucker glared venomously at each other.

"Okay, okay," I interrupted sharply. "We all agree that there's no way for us to leave either. If this is our only option, we have to get started now or Wash will never get away."

"I do not want to get gun stunned…" Caboose piped up nervously.

"Don't bitch, Caboose, it's just like taking a nap," Grif yawned. "Can we get this over with, or what?"

"This is ridiculous!" Sarge muttered unhappily. "I'd rather die than be defeated!"

"Well, I can shoot you with a normal gun instead, if you want," Wash said dryly. "The stunner will wear off after the UNSC troopers come."

"Why do we have to get shot too?" Simmons complained. "We're on the complete other side of the canyon!"

"If anyone's left alone when Wash escapes, they'll be suspicious," I insisted. "I don't want you guys to go to jail too. This is bad enough as it is."

Wash left with the four Reds and came back alone, his face grim.

"It didn't hurt them too much, I hope?" I asked anxiously.

"Don't worry. Put them right to sleep," Wash replied aloofly, walking toward the Blues. "All right, you guys are next."

Caboose fell asleep instantly and Wash shut down Church's robot body, shoving it in the basement so as not to cause undue questions.

"Your turn, Tucker," Wash said, and I could almost see him smiling beneath his helmet. Tucker crossed his arms grumpily.

"Fine. Just do it," the aqua soldier huffed.

Wash pointed the stun gun at Tucker's leg and shot quickly, but only a soft click emanated from the weapon. Wash opened the gun and sighed heavily.

"Out of ammo," he said, shaking the gun. "You guys have any more of these?"

Tucker shook his head. "The rest of the stun guns and their bullets were totally demolished by the AIs. That was the last round we had." Wash started striding up to Tucker, dropping the gun to the ground. "I guess you're just going to have to tie me and Ells up." He paused, grinning roguishly. "Or you could just lock us in the closet together. I'm sure we could keep each other company really well in there."

Wash reached Tucker and threw one swift punch at his head, knocking him out instantly. "Nah."

"Wash!" I whined as the Freelancer dragged Tucker's body beside Caboose's. "That was unnecessary!"

He shrugged. "He'll live. Unfortunately."

I almost let out a chuckle before realizing I was next. Wash strode up to me and raised a fist in the air. I winced, closing my eyes and waiting for the blow to knock me out, suddenly struck by a pang of fear.

Nothing happened.

I opened my eyes hesitantly, and Wash's fist still hung in the air. He stared at me. After what seemed an eternity, he lowered his hand.

"What are you doing?"

Wash looked away. "I can't punch you, Eleven."

"But you have to!" I protested, though part of me was relieved he had not carried through with the strike.

"No."

He left the room and I followed, watching as he rummaged through drawers in the kitchen. He finally pulled out a long length of rope and dragged a chair to the other room.

"Sit down," he said stonily.

"What are you thinking?" I asked, frowning.

"I'm just going to tie you up."

"That will look suspicious! The UNSC troopers will think that I helped you escape!"

Wash shrugged. "So tell them I ran out of stun bullets. That's the truth."

Still worried, I sat down. Wash began to tie my wrists and legs securely to the chair. I allowed him to work, an overwhelming sadness washing over me.

When he finished, he straightened up and let the rest of the rope fall to the ground. Then, he disappeared in the kitchen for a moment, bringing back a small towel.

"I—I have to gag you too," he added, his voice tainted with apology.

"Wait," I said quickly. I had to get one last word in. "You're leaving right after this?"

"Yes."

"Please—please don't get caught," I pleaded. "Don't let them find you. I couldn't—I couldn't bear it if you were locked up again."

Wash was quiet. "You really care whether or not I go to jail?"

"Yes!" I breathed. "What if they throw you in a mental institution just in case? They'll know that we found the AIs. You can't go through that again. You just can't!"

"I'll be careful."

"How can I know you'll be all right?"

Wash knelt in front of me, removing my helmet gently and allowing it to roll away across the floor; he took his off as well and set it on the ground. He gazed at me intently, brushing a small strand of hair out of my face.

"You can't."

I swallowed hard. My eyes felt prickly for some reason. "Promise you'll stay safe. Promise me."

Wash sighed heavily but didn't look away. He leaned forward slowly, stopping his face inches from mine, and my heart stopped.

We stood there, frozen for a moment, before he looked away and I felt the small square of cloth slip over my mouth. He stood up and left after securing the towel and walked toward the doorway. At the very last moment, he turned to me.

Wash swallowed hard, having trouble speaking. Then:

"I lo—"

He stopped, snapping his mouth shut and closing his eyes as if in pain. When he opened them again, they looked shiny.

"I promise you, Ells."

He was gone.


	4. Reconviction, Part V

What a sight the UNSC troopers must have stumbled into as they raided Blood Gulch a few hours later. All the simulation troopers unconscious and one soldier tied to a chair, her eyes red and the cloth covering her face sopping wet.

They knocked Blue base's door down, saw the fallen team, and then noticed me. They rushed up to the chair, untying me quickly and freeing me of the gag. I said nothing at first but grabbed my helmet and stuck it on my head quickly, refusing to allow them to see my face.

"What is the meaning of this?" one of the troopers demanded, poking at Tucker's back with the end of his gun. He wore a tag that said 'Hullum' on his breastplate. "Where's the Freelancer?"

"I don't know," I croaked. Clearing my throat, I spoke up again. "He—he attacked us and left. He knew you were coming."

"All of the soldiers in this canyon couldn't stand up to one stupid Freelancer?" another trooper asked me. "Some military base."

I glared at him as the troopers began searching through the base. They seemed unsurprised at the mess and knew exactly where all the hiding places were. There was no doubt that they had invaded our base the first time as well. Bastards.

"You three—Ramsey, Sorola, Godwin!" the first trooper, Hullum, barked. "Go check Red base. See if Washington's hiding there."

"Yes, sir," they replied, and left without another word.

"Tell me exactly what happened," the leader demanded.

I hesitated, unsure how to word Wash's escape. "Washington realized that you were coming to arrest him. He attacked all of us so we couldn't stop him and escaped before you arrived."

His eyes narrowed. "Oh? So why are all the rest of these sims knocked out, but you're still conscious?"

"He ran out of stun gun bullets," I replied uneasily.

"Why wouldn't he just kill you?" another trooper asked. 'Heyman' was stamped across his armor. "Seems easier..."

"I believe I could answer that question, mate."

Another figure stalked into the room, and I gasped, staggering back a few steps. No. It couldn't be.

"_Wyoming!"_

"Why, hello there, Agent Eleven," the soldier in white chuckled. "Long time, no see, eh?"

"You know this sim trooper?" Hullum asked, confused.

"Sim trooper?" Wyoming repeated. "Hardly. This one's CIA. And… yes. We are rather well acquainted."

My mouth went dry, and I struggled to restrain my hand from flying to my AI slot. If Wyoming knew which fragment I had fused to my mind…

"I demand to know what's going on here!" Hullum yelled, obviously irritated at not understanding the current situation.

Wyoming grinned mischievously, and I glared. "Why, Agent Washington couldn't bear the thought of hurting Eleven here."

"Shut up!" I snapped.

"In his escape," Wyoming continued cheekily. "I doubt he had the guts to lay a finger on her. She did… ah… leave quite an _impression_ on him back at Project Freelancer, if you understand my meaning…"

My eyes flashed in anger, my face reddening deeply.

"Always knew you Freelancers were pussies," Hullum muttered. "Can't even kill your own enemies proper, much less your stupid schoolboy crushes."

"He—he—" I sputtered. "That's not why he—"

"Listen, we ain't accusin' ya of anything. Just be thankful you got a face that Freelancer didn't want to blow to smithereens."

I fell silent, stewing in rage and glaring at the white Freelancer as the troopers checked the rest of the base. When the second group returned and announced that Wash was nowhere near the Reds' side of the canyon either, the troopers left me some medical supplies for the unconscious simulation troopers and prepared to depart.

"Let us know if you see him," Hullum said gruffly to me. "He's got a date with that cell of his I'd hate to see him miss. You don't meet your deadlines around here, you pay the consequences. Carry on with your mission. Let's head out, men."

Wyoming waited until the rest of the troopers had left, lagging behind. My stomach clenched in nervousness as I realized he wasn't leaving.

"Agent Eleven," Wyoming said darkly, slamming the Blue base's door shut behind him. "What in God's name is really going on here?"

"I think_ I_ have the right to be asking that right now!" I protested. "How are you alive?"

"I implore you not to ask why I am not dead, and I will refrain from asking why your little _accident_ at Project Freelancer did not kill you as well."

I fell silent for a moment, glaring at the white-armored soldier.

"Wash bailed," I replied flatly. "I guess you're the next in line to be Command's sniffer dog now that he didn't reach his deadline?"

"Aren't you the bright one?" the Freelancer sneered. "I search for the AI fragments same as you. However… I have a real team to help me."

"Why are you getting yourself involved with this?" I asked. "You weren't in jail and forced to help like Wash was. Everyone thought you were dead! You could have avoided this whole mess!"

Wyoming raised his bushy eyebrows. "I have my own reasons for becoming involved."

I growled. God, this Brit was irritating.

"I believe you are the real matter at hand here," he continued, surveying me. "Tell me, Eleven, how did—"

"Agent Wyoming!"

One of the troopers, Heyman, hurtled back into the base.

"We found him, sir!" he said excitedly. "We located Agent Washington!"


	5. Reconviction, Part VI

( There's a very, _very_ important announcement over in _Before the Recon_, guys. Just to let you know. )

* * *

Wyoming's eyes perked up in delight while mine widened in alarm.

"So soon?" he chuckled, stepping away from me. "My, my... the old boy's getting rusty."

He stepped over the fallen Blues and strode outside; I followed him quickly, my heart beating fast. I couldn't reveal that I was worried about Wash—that would certainly inform the other guards that I had helped him escape—but my breaths were short.

"Where is he?" Wyoming asked the UNSC trooper.

"We found an escape pod missing from a large ship nearby," Heyman explained. "After a quick scan, we located the pod traveling heading away from the planet. It's still in the atmosphere."

_What? _How was this possible? Wash had left hours ago. He should have been on the other side of the galaxy by now. He must have been having technical difficulties with the passenger pod. He must have needed to make extensive repairs on the ship before leaving and was heavily delayed._ Those damned AIs._

"We have him on our sights," Heyman continued, stalking over to Godwin, who was setting up and aiming an enormous rocket launcher. "We only wait for the signal to blast him out of the sky."

"No!" I gasped. The others looked at me.

"'Scuse me?" Hullum asked.

"I—I mean," I backtracked, embarrassed. "You don't need to—to shoot at him!"

"We've already sent transmissions warnin' him to come back and turn himself in," the leader of the troops explained, shaking his head. "He's ignorin' us and continuing to fly away from the planet. So this is our last option."

"No—no, please, there has to be another way!" I begged. "You can't do this!"

"Actually, my dear, we certainly can," Wyoming replied airily. "Is your launcher ready, soldier?"

"Yes, sir!" Godwin replied.

"Very well." Wyoming suddenly grabbed one of my arms tightly and looked up to the sky. "Fire."

I rushed forward to try to stop the trooper from firing the weapon, but as I snarled and ran at him, Wyoming's grip tightened and he wrenched me backward.

"NO!"

My scream was drowned out by the sound of the weapons firing from Godwin's setup. Two twin rockets were blasted into the sky and propelled themselves toward the passenger pod. Toward Wash.

This couldn't be happening. No. It couldn't be. I watched in horror as the rockets disappeared into the sky, and all fell quiet. I prayed that nothing would happen. That the sky would remain silent. That the rockets would miss.

The skies were not in my favor.

A blinding whiteness pierced the blue, fire exploding from miles away. I shook and fell to my knees, the fire searing into my eyes, but I dared not look away. The soldiers stared at the sky as the explosion dissipated, and a slow rumble finally reached back to us with sickening finality.

"...Direct hit!" Godwin cried with savage happiness, breaking the silence. "Three points, you dirty whore!"

Everything was a blur. The troopers were packing up and leaving; Wyoming smirked pitilessly down at me. I was hardly able to comprehend what had just happened. My mouth simply flapped wordlessly, my eyes glued to the blue sky, its cheerful brightness now a mockery of this situation.

"Another Freelancer down," Wyoming mused unconcernedly. "Such a pity. Now who will I have to compete with to find the AIs?"

My mind had frozen, and even if I had a comeback, my tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth. I wouldn't have been able to choke out words if I wanted to.

"Now, now, little Eleven," the Freelancer continued in mock me. "This man was a criminal. Why ever would you want to save him?"

He knelt on the ground beside my violently shaking form.

"Years ago, you thought you'd found someone to spend the rest of your life with," Wyoming whispered. "And then... tragedy fell. You had your happily ever after stripped from you in an instant."

I winced, not wanting to hear this. _No. Go away._

"Then, you found each other again. After years of fighting, you made amends, got along. Did you really think that you'd get your fairy tale ending after all of this?"

I refused to answer him. I refused to acknowledge that he was there.

No. I never thought that I would be able to grow old with him. Not Wash. Not anyone. After my failed mission, I always knew there would never be a way. I just... I never thought that I'd have to watch...

"Your story ends no happier than ours, Agent," Wyoming continued. "Do you know why?"

Silence.

"Because you were a part of Project Freelancer."

The white Freelancer stood up and called orders I was no longer able to comprehend. The UNSC troopers congratulated themselves on a mission well done, seemingly unable to tell that the Agent on the ground in front of them was suffering a ripping pain in her chest.

They finally left, and I had no idea whether they would return, nor did I care. I still had not moved from my spot in the grass, and my unblinking eyes had become blurred.

"W... Wash..." I managed to choke out, my tongue almost numb.

Not giving a damn who saw me now, I curled up into a ball on the ground, sobs wracking my body.

At least, when Epsilon had taken his mind, I knew that Wash would survive. His mind had been tainted, perhaps, but he could recover. He could be fixed as much as possible.

Even when he had left me only hours before, I thought he'd escape. He was a _Freelancer._ They could take care of themselves. They were super-solders. Unbeatable.

And even as the thought formed in my mind, I knew it was a lie. I cried harder, the tears streaming down my face. Carolina, York, CT, North, South, Georgia... and now Wash.

Now, my Freelancer had nothing to recover from. He had been torn into oblivion by the very same people who had sent him on this mission, and they had left me alone to seep in the poisonous fact that now ran through my veins.

I would never see David again.


	6. Father's Day, Part I

( I believe you will find Chapter 16 of _Runner Five_ to be _quite_ relevant to recent events. )

* * *

Taking deep, shuddering breaths, I finally sat up.

My mind felt dead. A large void had torn open in my chest, a huge, vacuous hole that dissipated all of my emotions.

I fumbled with my armor belt, unclasping one of the compartments clumsily and gripping a silver chain in my hand. I lifted the chain into the air, avoiding looking at the characters imprinted on the dog tags hanging from it. I had already memorized them anyway. The silver metal was imprinted with his ID number, state alias, and real name, "Project Freelancer" stamped across the back of both.

He never knew that I had kept them.

Without pausing, I removed the top half of my armor, prying off my black under-armor layer as well. I unclasped the chain and placed it around my neck, tucking it beneath my clothing and putting my armor back on.

"Hey, Eleven."

I jumped and looked up; Church stood above me, his entity pale and opaque. He had removed himself from his body. Normally, I would have questioned his decision; however, now, I found I just didn't care.

I didn't answer him and continued to piece my armor back together.

"Listen..." he said slowly. "I saw what happened. I decided to leave my body to get a better look. It's still in the basement. I made sure no one noticed me."

I still said nothing, adjusting my uniform.

"I—I'm really sorry," Church continued. Great. Just what I needed. A pity party. "I know what it's like to... lose someone you l—"

"I don't," I cut him off tartly, standing up. "Let's go make sure the_ others_ aren't dead too."

Without another word, I strode away toward Blue base and entered it. Tucker and Caboose were stirring; I opened the medical kit and prepared some pain pills for them.

"Oh... ouch..." Tucker moaned. "My head..." He looked around the room, poking at Caboose's mumbling form. "Ugh, he punched me! That asshole... where is he?"

I didn't even turn to him. "'That asshole' is dead."

Tucker froze. "Wait... what?"

I filled a cup with water and handed Tucker some pills wordlessly. Church floated into the room as well; there was no way in hell I was going to relive that situation again. Church could take care of it.

On the opposite side of the canyon, the Reds were stirring as well. Donut moaned and asked me to make him some herbal tea, so I emotionlessly set to work as they recovered. I managed not to burn myself in completing the task—but, then again, I would have welcomed the pain. Anything but the numbness.

"I see Washington isn't anywhere around!" Sarge boomed, striding into the kitchen as he and the others started cleaning the base. "He left then, didn't he?"

"He's gone," I replied blankly.

Donut heard that and dropped his ruined curtains to come closer to me.

"Ells, are you okay?" he asked gently.

"Yes," I lied. The opposite could not have been more obvious.

"It's not that bad," he said soothingly. "It's not like you won't ever see him again—"

"Actually, it is," I said, pouring the boiling water into a mug for the pink soldier. "He was shot out of the sky by the UNSC. I saw it."

The Reds froze. "Wh... what?" Simmons gaped.

"You heard me," I continued coldly. "Don't ask me to repeat myself."

Donut was sensitive enough to shoo the others from the kitchen to leave me in peace. When they had gone, he sighed and took off his helmet, approaching me cautiously.

I still didn't look at him. I reached up and brought the teabags down from the cabinet above me, forcing my hands to stay busy.

Without a word, Donut turned and hugged me tightly. I stiffened in his grasp for a moment, the teabags still in my hand, but he didn't move away. He simply held me.

Finally, I dropped the tea and wrapped my arms around him as well. We were silent for a moment as steam drifted off our mugs and I relaxed for a moment.

For once, Donut had nothing to say. We drank in silence, listening to Sarge arguing with Grif and ordering Simmons around as if everything were normal.

"Thanks," I managed to say. I couldn't smile, but my cheeks lifted a fraction.

When we finally exited the kitchen, we encountered Sarge, Grif, and Simmons all crowded around the window, looking out the back of the base intently.

"What are you guys looking at?" Donut asked.

"Uh…" Sarge began. "Missy, are you sure those guys from Command left?"

"Yeah?" I replied, frowning. I glanced over the Reds' shoulders, and a cloud of figures was visible, stirring up dust as they shuffled toward us. I squinted through the dirt; the figures were very tall people with huge, hunched shoulders and… and…

And tails.

They weren't people. They weren't even human.

Sarge growled. "Then I think we have company."


	7. Father's Day, Part II

"What are they doing here?" Grif yelped. "I thought the war was over!"

"That never stopped them from trying to kill us before," Simmons grumbled.

"Woah, woah, woah," I interrupted, frowning. "You know these guys?"

Sarge peeked back toward the crowd. "Well, not these ones exactly, but… yeah, we do. We've had plenty of run-ins with the Aliens. Especially in that desert. You were briefed on that, right? When CT attacked us?"

I blinked. "Oh… yes. I did know about that." I hesitated, unwanted Project Freelancer memories flooding my mind. The attack. Carolina, Tex, CT, and her partner. A fatal knife wound. "Uh… You guys realize that the 'CT' you were talking to—"

"Was a total asshole?" Grif interrupted. "Yeah, we got the picture. It's a good thing Church killed him when he was stuck inside that floating ball. The guy was a dick."

"Um…" I frowned. Now, _that_ was something I hadn't been aware of. "Wait, the guy you met—someone in brown—is dead?"  
"Uh, yeah. You can't live after being fried by a laser, Eleven."

Oh… oh, dear. That Insurrectionist… well. I supposed he was now with CT once more.

I shook the thought from my mind and stayed quiet as the Reds jabbered on about the Aliens who now approached us. They were clear in our vision now, and I realized that the tails I had identified before were not tails at all, but bodies. The aliens were dragging their dead behind them.

"Why—why are they carrying those bodies around?" Donut asked warily. "What's the point of keeping them like that?"  
I considered myself rather well versed in the field of Alien relations, but my mind drew a blank. Generally, the Aliens ceremoniously cremated their dead immediately after death.

"I have no idea."

We watched as the aliens trudged past Red base, hardly even looking at it. Their eyes were all trained on a single point in front of them.

"Blue base?" I questioned. "What the—why are they heading toward Blue base?"  
I expected the others to look at each other and shrug, unknowing; however, the looks they gave each other were certainly not of confusion.

"You guys…" I said slowly, suspicious. "What's going on?"

"Uh…" Donut laughed nervously. "What do you know about the first time we encountered Aliens here?"

Frowning, I ran through all of my mission briefings regarding Blood Gulch in my mind. "Well, I—I know that an Alien came to Blood Gulch and was predicted to be some sort of savior, right? Tex and O'Malley kidnapped it so they could negotiate with the Alien race and eventually take over. I wasn't even surprised, given O'Malley's track record. But it was an idiotic plan." I paused. "Why? Does that have something to do with this?"

The Reds were staring at the front of the group of Aliens, where the tallest figure in teal was striding ahead of the others.

"You don't think—" Grif started.

"Yeah… yeah, I do," Simmons replied, still staring out toward the front of the group. "I think he's back."

"What—who?" I asked.

"Junior," Donut piped in. "It definitely looks like him. The little guy's so big now!"

I stared at them. "'Junior?' What the hell are you guys talking about?"

"Missy," Sarge explained. "That right there is the Alien scum that Tex took with her!"

"You named it _Junior?_"

"We didn't name it!" Donut replied indignantly. "He did."

Okay. I had no idea what was going on. "Who?"

They simply glanced at each other furtively once more, not answering me.

"We should probably get out there," Sarge suggested, speeding toward the door.

"Right behind you," Simmons agreed, chasing after his superior.

Grif followed right behind them and Donut attempted to leave the base as well, but I grabbed his arm roughly.

"Donut, you'd better explain what the hell's going on," I growled, clenching his armor hard in my fist. "What aren't you guys telling me?"

Donut gazed at me uneasily. "Uh… the Alien didn't exactly _come_ here, Ells."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He sighed. "You'll see soon enough. Come on."

Perplexed, I followed the Reds out of the base and we followed the Aliens carefully across the canyon. When we reached the other base, the Aliens were honking irritably at the Blues.

"What the hell are you thinking?" Church yelled from inside. "Are you crazy? He's not a little kid anymore!"

"I know!" Tucker protested. "It's okay, though! I've worked with him since then! It's all good!"

"Don't go out there, man. There are like sixteen of them. They'll murder you!"

"No, they won't!" Tucker insisted. "Come on, Church. They wouldn't!"

"How do you know?" the AI snapped back.

As the two Blues fought, the Aliens became more and more irritated. When the lead teal Alien started scratching at the door impatiently, I scrambled forward despite concerned yells from the Reds.

_"Wait, stop!"_ I stepped in front of the Alien. _"This is an official UNSC simulation trooper base!"_

The Aliens and the humans fell silent for a second, staring at me. The Reds' jaws hung open in surprise.

The Alien responded, his honks and blargs rough. _"We have come to collect what is rightfully ours."_

_"Which would be what?" _I asked, cringing a little. I had such a heavy English accent. I thought I'd learned to overcome that, but… I was out of practice. Damn.

Either the Alien refused to respond, or he simply didn't understand me. _"Take us to the key-bearer."_


	8. Father's Day, Part III

(Request chapters for _After the Recon_ will not be updated this weekend and will likely not be posted in the next few weeks either. Once I have some time again, I will continue to add them. You won't have too long to wait. :])

* * *

_"What?"_ I gaped. I called back to the blues in English. "You guys know anything about a key-bearer?"

"See? They wanna talk to me!" Tucker told Church hotly. "Get out of the way—not that you standing in the doorway does much good. I can just walk right through you."

That was apparently exactly what Tucker did because he opened the Blue base's door and stepped outside.

As he saw me, he smirked slightly before addressing the Alien leader.

"Hey, Junior!" he said brightly. "Did you miss me?"

_"I am not so small anymore; thus, that name is not appropriate,"_ the Alien sniffed. _"I could squash you beneath my feet now if I wanted to."_

"What's he saying, Ells?" Tucker asked.

"Uh, that he's big now and you shouldn't call him Junior," I translated.

"That's what I named you, though!"

The Alien snorted. _"It is of no consequence. I am here now on business. Give us the key."_

"Tucker, they're talking about some sort of key. I have no idea what that means."

"Yeah!" Tucker exclaimed, unsheathing his energy sword. "They mean this!"

_"That is it,"_ Junior hissed. _"It is rightfully ours."_

"That's not a key," I replied. "That's a sword."

"And when you stick it in people, it unlocks their death!" Caboose piped up from inside the house.

"It's both, Ells," Tucker explained. "You see, when—"

_"Yes! The time is nigh for us to retrieve the key!" _another Alien commented, and that set off a whole new wave of honks and blargs.

I couldn't concentrate through all the noise. English and Alien were melding into one in my ear.

"_All right, BE QUIET!" _I cried, unable to tell whether I had spoken in English or the foreign tongue. However, the Aliens fell silent and the Reds were still staring at me as if I were a lunatic, so I wagered what I had just screamed had just sounded like an excruciatingly loud honk.

I cleared my throat. "Tell us exactly why you want the key," I enunciated slowly so everyone in the canyon could understand. The Aliens were quiet for a moment before Junior spoke again.

_"We have many dead,"_ he explained, indicating the dragged bodies. _"The war with the humans caused many of my relatives to fall. We have lost a great number of soldiers and have no ships on which to go home. We have lost, and we recognize that. Now, all we wish is to bury our dead on our home planet in peace and bless them with the relic." _

"Relic?" I asked. "I thought it was a key now!"

"It is a key, but they actually think it's something special too," Tucker interrupted. "What's he saying?"

"Tucker, shut up a second," I snapped, and then turned to Junior. _"If we give you this relic, how will you get to your home planet if you don't have any ships?"_

_"By your leave, we will borrow the use of your transportation devices,"_ Junior replied. _"They will be sufficient."_

_"Enough talk!" _another Alien screeched._ "We have waited long enough! Take the relic!"_

The other aliens were becoming restless as well, I noticed, holding their weapons close and at the ready.

"Tucker, they want the sword!" I said nervously as the Aliens slowly began creeping forward.

"Wait, what?" he yelped, stepping back. "Why?"

"I don't know, but this isn't looking good!" I turned to the Aliens. "Wait, stop! You can't do this!"

_"We most certainly can,"_ Junior replied flatly. _"Give it to us."_

The Aliens began advancing on Tucker, and I stepped in front of him.

"Don't move any closer, or I'll get you attacked!" I spat viciously. "Don't you know the terms of the Inter-Spacial UNSC Peace Treaty?"

The Aliens stopped. _"Of course we do,"_ Junior said irritably. _"It forced our people to stay isolated. To remind us that we lost. It never said anything about you humans keeping our property!"_

My eyes narrowed. "You must have not read the document properly," I replied haughtily. "Don't you know about Paragraph Five, Negotiations Code 236.8?"

Junior growled. _"What part of the treaty is this?"_

"It states that, when negotiating for enemy property, the party withholding said property has two days in which to make its decision. If this code is broken, then all-out war is in danger of breaking out again." I paused for dramatic effect. "Do you want any more bodies to drag around, Junior?"

The Aliens began muttering in frustration. _"Fine,"_ Junior honked. _"We will give you two days. We will camp behind the scarlet soldiers' base." _He blarged out an order to his Aliens, who reluctantly turned away and began heading toward the other side of the canyon, every so often glancing back greedily at Tucker's sword.

The Reds and Blues waited awkwardly until the Aliens were out of earshot, and then they all swarmed around me.

"What—what the hell was that?" Grif yelped. "You—you were honking and blarging and—and talking to them!"

"I'm not the Senior Officer of Intraglobal Affairs for nothing, you know," I grinned.

Church raised an eyebrow "So you can speak a complicated and intricate Alien language, but you can't speak _basic Spanish?"_

I glowered. "Shut up."

"And—and that thing! With the treaty!" Simmons said in awe. "You memorized all of it? I thought that I had combed through the whole thing—"

"Nerd," Grif coughed.

"—And I didn't even memorize that part. I couldn't remember Negotiations Code 236.8 at all!"

I chuckled, a little sheepish. "I—uh—well, I may have pulled that out of my ass."

Donut giggled. "Wow, those suckers took it right in!"

"Bow chicka bow wow."

"I needed to buy us some time," I explained, crossing my arms. "I have no idea what's going on, and _you_ suckers have a shit-ton of explaining to do."

The Reds and Blues all looked at Tucker, who reddened a little.

"Oh, come on, you can't blame me for wanting to say hello!" he insisted. "How was I supposed to know that my own son would want to take my sword?"

I choked. "Wait—_WHAT?"_


	9. Father's Day, Part IV

Donut chuckled nervously. "I—uh—we'll be back at Red base if you need us. Toodles!" He grabbed Simmons and Grif and dragged them away, Sarge striding quickly with them, not daring to look back toward my unhinged jaw.

"He's my kid!" Tucker replied.

"Y—you... you..." I stuttered. "You—got it on with a… you—you knocked up an _Alien?"_

"Nah, Tucker's the one who got knocked up," Church smirked. He seemed to be greatly enjoying the scene playing out.

I closed my eyes momentarily. "Explain this. To me. Before I go postal."

Tucker glared at Church, who shrugged and grinned.

"Back when I got the sword, the first Alien we met would, like, watch me at night. Hover. It was creepy. And it turned out that it—well, it impregnated me. So... I had a kid."

"You got pregnant."

"Yeah."

"And you… _birthed_… an Alien."

"Yeah."

"And the monster that just tried to steal your sword is your Alien kid?"

"...Yeah."

My voice dropped angrily. "Why the hell didn't you tell me you had a _son?"_

Tucker shrugged. "Um… now you know."

"This is unbelievable," I muttered, striding past them into the base. "Un-freaking-believable."

Tucker chased after me. "What's wrong?"

"Don't you realize how much trouble this is going to cause for us?" I snapped. "Now that we have some awkward human-Alien hybrid, it changes everything about our negotiations! We can't treat him completely like an enemy, because he has human blood too! He's your God damn son!"

"Aw, come on, Ells—"

"No!" I cut him off, pointing a finger at him menacingly. "Don't 'Aw, come on, Ells' me. Not only is this going to cause problems for everyone, but—but you—" I huffed. "You freaking hit on me without telling me that you had a kid. That is NOT cool, Tucker. Go away."

I stormed off and locked myself in my room, slamming the door shut behind me.

How idiotic. As if I didn't have enough shit to deal with at the moment. This was the last damned thing that needed to happen to us. I was in the middle of a mission to find those stupid, stupid AIs. Wash was—he was—he wasn't around anymore, and Wyoming and those other UNSC troopers were taking over my job for me without any express permission from the CIA. If that wasn't enough, I still had that little sliver of deceit still fused to my mind, and I had no idea how long that would last. Would Gamma ever recover from his dormant state? If he did… would I know?

I sat down at my desk, my head in my hands. Through the vent on my ceiling, I could hear Church and Tucker arguing, and I wished I could just shut them out for _two seconds._

I opened my research materials and began looking for any information about dealing with Alien-human hybrids, but minimal information was available, even with all of my security clearances. I hated to bother Hale, but… I supposed he needed to be caught up on recent events.

"Hello, Agent Eleven," Hale answered as I contacted him via radio. "Are you… how are you?"

That introduction was... not what I expected. Hale had always been a kind and just leader, but I didn't think he had ever just asked me _how I was_ before. Of course, that excluded any events relating to Project Freelancer, but I refused to think about those for too long anyway.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean… I realize that the UNSC took rather… drastic action regarding Agent Washington."

Oh no. Not this again.

"Freelancer Wyoming informed us of his refusal to cooperate. And I am wondering how you are dealing with the situation emotionally."

I tightened my jaw. "Other events have happened that you need to know about." I continued quickly, not allowing him to cut me off. "Aliens have come toward the area, demanding a relic of considerable value to them. They want it to bless their dead formally."

Hale sighed, but didn't comment on the change of subject. "I assume you are referring to the relic that is in possession of the Blue team."

"Yes." Why was I always the last person to know these things?

"Have they taken it back?"

"No. They're giving us two days to think over their demand."

"Why?"

"I… uh… convinced them to."

"Hmm. Your title as Head of Affairs truly befits you, then."

I cringed a little. I doubted he would say such flattery after knowing I had fabricated a section of the UNSC Peace treaty. "Thank you, sir."

"How to you plan on answering the Aliens then, Eleven?"

"I'm trying to figure that out. The Alien in charge is half human, so we can't exactly treat him like an enemy, can we?"

"The Alien is a hybrid and has chosen to take the side of his Alien parentage?"

"Yes."

Hale thought for a moment. "Well, that does not change a thing."

"What?"

"The Alien's blood does not play a role in our negotiations. That sword is an Alien relic and it is our duty to perform repatriation. It is not UNSC or even human property. You must give it back. You said that the Aliens want it to bless their dead; it is a sacred object. We have no right to keep it, even if it does 'belong' to… which one was it… Private Tucker of Blue team."

"But sir," I protested. "Tucker—I mean Private Tucker—found it. It really does belong to him. He's had it for a really long time!"

"That is no excuse," Hale replied firmly. "War is not a game of 'finders, keepers,' Eleven. Just because we won does not mean we can disrespect the fallen or their culture. It is your duty to give back the sword."

I pursed my lips, relenting. "All right. We will."

"Good. I will want a status report when the task has been completed." Hale paused a moment. "And Eleven?"

"Yes?"

"I am sorry about your loss. I am aware that you and Agent Washington had your quarrels, but… you did ultimately care for him."

"No." Why did people keep_ saying_ that? "I didn't. Mr. Hale, I am not open to discussion about this topic. May I be excused?"

Hale sighed. "Yes, Eleven. But I have one order for you."

"Yes…?"

"You are stressed. Do not deny that. So get some sleep, and… and then go for a run."

Confused, I frowned. "A run?"

"Yes, Agent. You need to expend your pent-up emotions—I mean, energy—somehow. Go for a run. A... run around the canyon. That should help."

These were, without a doubt, the strangest orders I had ever received. "Uh, yes, sir."

"Good. I look forward to your status report. Have a nice evening, Eleven."

"Likewise."


	10. Father's Day, Part V

I clicked my radio off and yawned loudly, exhausted. Looking into the mirror for the first time in days, I saw a tired Agent staring back at me, dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and abundance of stress.

What did Hale expect, after everything that had happened?

Although this new development with the Aliens was annoying, a part of me was guiltily thankful for the distraction. This new problem would keep me busy and stop me from thinking about the very thing Hale had insisted on bringing up.

After changing into pajamas and putting my hair up in a lazy bun, I stalked toward the kitchen. If any time existed when I needed an unhealthy late night snack, it was now.

The Blues were getting ready for bed as I snuck down the hallway. I passed by Church's bedroom, where he was… still transparent. I knocked on his doorframe lightly, and he turned to me.

"Why aren't you using your body?" I asked, feeling somewhat guilty all of a sudden. Perhaps we had neglected to turn it back on in the midst of Blood Gulch's chaos.

Church looked back at me uneasily. "I can't find it."

I cocked my head. "You can't find your body? We put it in the basement."

"I know. But I didn't actually stay in there for long. As soon as Wash turned it off and left, I left it and went out scouting for the UNSC guys in the woods. I followed them back here and saw everything that happened. When I went back downstairs to look for my body, it was… gone."

"Where the hell could it be?" I asked, perplexed. "Are you sure it isn't just in another spot in the basement?"

"Positive. Maybe Wash didn't turn it off properly and it just walked off or something."

"Maybe," I replied. Yet _another_ problem. "We'll see about getting you another. Maybe Sarge will build you a new one."

"Sounds good. It's okay, we'll figure it out later. Night, Eleven."

"G'night."

I clicked his door shut and continued to the kitchen, opening the freezer and taking out a pint of vanilla ice cream, since Caboose had long since consumed our stock of cookie dough. I plopped down at the kitchen table and sighed heavily, digging my spoon into the ice cream.

"Wanna share?"

I looked up and immediately frowned. Tucker stood in the doorway, wearing teal shorts, a white t-shirt, and a slightly apprehensive smile.

"Well, it would be pretty bitchy of me to hog it all to myself," I replied dryly, reaching over to the silverware drawer and tossing him a spoon.

He sat down beside me and scooped out some ice cream as well. "Ells, I know you're mad at me—"

"I'm only going to be mad at you if you keep calling me that."

Tucker raised his eyebrows.

"You keep telling me that."

"You keep forgetting."

"I don't forget. It just doesn't matter to me where the nickname came from or who made it up. I like it."

I stabbed the ice cream a little more violently than I intended with the spoon. "Well I don't." I wanted to change the subject. "Tucker, why didn't you just tell me about Junior?"

"You want the truth?" he asked. I nodded. "I just didn't think it was important to bring up. It was a stage in my life, it happened, and we both moved on. I think I have a pretty good relationship with the kid."

I laughed at that. "Right. And he told me today he could squish you if he wanted to."

"Really?" Tucker replied thoughtfully. "Well, that goes to show how well I learned how to speak Alien."

We chuckled and continued eating. I couldn't stay upset with Tucker. Not really. Maybe he had forgotten to tell me about this, but getting impregnated—if that were the truth—hadn't been his fault. Besides, we had been through too much. Getting angry at him over this was pointless.

"So what are we going to do about the Aliens anyway?" Tucker continued, wincing as his brain froze from a rather large portion of ice cream.

"Well… We're going to give them your sword."

Tucker sat up straight. "What?"

As I explained to him the situation, his brow darkened. When I finished, I waited a little apprehensively for his reaction.

Finally, he sighed. "Okay."

I blinked. "Wait—really?"

"There isn't really anything else we can do," he shrugged, taking out the sword and gazing at it wistfully. "If it's theirs, I can't just steal it for myself. Wouldn't want another war to break out because of me, right?" He grinned. "Besides, I don't need a sword to be badass."

I chuckled, impressed. "That was not the reaction I expected."

"But Ells, what if it's a trap?" Tucker was gazing at me intently. "Like you just said, the Aliens wouldn't have a problem killing us if they wanted to. What if they just want to lure us away or something?"

"It's a possibility. After all, you Blood Gulchers know way too much about them anyway."

"That's not going to stop us from trying to make peace, is it?"

"Nope."

"I guess it's worth a shot then."

We continued eating the ice cream quietly.

"You know," I added after a moment. "You've really… you've really grown up, Tucker. I was expecting you to go nuts over having to give your sword back."

Tucker nodded and leaned back in the chair, his hands behind his head. I took the half-eaten ice cream and stuck it back in the freezer, and, when I turned around, Tucker was staring at me roguishly.

_Ah… damn._ I had inflated his ego. He had that shit-eating grin on his face, and I suddenly knew exactly what he was going to offer.

"We've also matured a lot since then," he said, grinning.

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I suppose…"

"Which means you know what a great guy I am."

I snorted. Time to break him down a bit again. "That's a matter of opinion."

"And you know how much of a great fighter I am too. But you know, I'm a lover, not a figh—"

"Tucker," I interrupted. "It would be really nice if you stopped trying to seduce me, all right? It's getting distracting."

"Come on, Ells, we might die tomorrow," Tucker pleaded. "You might not ever have a chance to sleep with anyone ever again!"

"Oh, you're looking out for me now?" I laughed. "How thoughtful. Sorry, dude."

He sighed. "It was worth a shot."

"You should have known I'd say no."

We both stood up. "I did," he replied simply.

I shook my head, confused. "So why even try?"

Tucker chuckled. "Because I'm irresistible. You'll come around."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure. We have a big day tomorrow, and you'd never get any sleep if I followed you back to your room."

We started walking back to our rooms, but he kept lingering near me.

"Who said I wanted to get sleep?"

I laughed and pushed him toward his own room. "_Good night,_ Tucker!"


	11. Father's Day, Part VI

"Yeah, I think that would be best, given the circumstances," I explained to Tucker as we strode toward Red base. Caboose was plodding along beside us, and I could hear his stomach rumbling. He rubbed it, frowning. "You definitely should be there considering the thing is yours… sort of. Plus, you know, the whole family relations thing. Nepotism has to get us somewhere. What do you think, Church?"

Silence.

I looked around, but the AI was nowhere to be seen. "Church?" I called.

"Back here!" we heard faintly from behind us. Squinting into the cool morning air, we saw a faint whisper of white. "Come back!"

Perplexed, we backtracked toward Blue base and encountered Church's ghostly form standing about twenty feet in front of the base.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

Church growled in irritation. "My body's lost, remember? It had that AI chip that stores all my data, and I can't move too far from where the chip is. I'm stuck."

"So that means your body is inside the base somewhere," shrugged Tucker. "Can't we find it with a tracking device or something?"

"Nope. The body's shut down."

"Come on," I said, dragging Tucker and Caboose back inside. "Let's go and check the basement one more time. It has to be there somewhere."

Down in the bowels of Blue base, we split up and searched through every box and around every corner. Church indicated to me where Wash had put his body, and I inspected the area carefully. Of course, the powder blue armor was nowhere to be seen. I crouched down low, ran my hand over the ground, and my fingers scraped against a small object.

I examined it, increasing the brightness on my armor light simultaneously. The metal and wires fused together on the object wound together complicatedly, forming a delicate array of expensive technological engineering. The instant my armor light shone on it, a spark of recognition rang through my mind and I almost dropped it out of the instinctual disgust and terror I had learned so many years ago.

"Church," I called uneasily, catching the object before it fell to the ground. "I found your AI chip."

"Oh, good," Tucker replied, coming over to us. "Okay, just stick it in your armor and we'll—"

"No."

"What?" The teal-armored soldier stood above me, his head cocked. "Why not?"

"I don't…" I began, refusing to look at Church, who was silent. There were a million reasons why. "I vowed never to use an AI after Project Freelancer."

This was technically true. However, I was not about to tell Tucker and Caboose that not only _wouldn't_ I carry Church in my armor, but I_ couldn't_. My armor and neural interfaces were… otherwise occupied. An involuntary shudder slipped down my spine as I remembered the sliver of deceit cruelly laughing in my mind.

Tucker shrugged. "Okay, fine. I'll do it," he said.

I instantly handed him Church's chip, and he stuck it easily in his AI slot.

"How's that feel?" he asked as Church flickered and squirmed. His ghostly form shrank to about the size of a parrot, and we headed back upstairs to leave Blue base for the second time that morning.

"Jesus, I barely have any space in here!" Church complained, floating along near Tucker's shoulder. "What the—what's in this home movies folder?"

"Don't look in there!" Tucker gasped. "Those are private!"

"There is no way I'm going to stay in 2 gigabytes of space," Church snapped. "I'm getting rid of some of this."

"No!" Tucker protested, but we all heard a faint beep.

Church sighed in relief. "There. Now I have some room to breathe."

"You're a dick," Tucker muttered. "Do you know how long it took me to find all those? It was my greatest collection!"

* * *

"Are you sure we should do this?"

"We don't have any other choice."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Uh, yeah. That was on purpose."

Sarge growled. "I don't trust 'em."

"Oh, right," Simmons replied dryly. "Because the rest of us are such close friends with them."

"We've been arguing about this for an hour," I groaned. "Seriously, we need to get a move on." I set my mug of coffee down on the Reds' kitchen table and stood up. "Can we please just get this over with?"

"They might kill us the second they have that thing though!" Grif replied, worriedly eating one of Donut's homemade doughnuts.

"We don't know that," I insisted. "Besides, orders are orders. Hale told us to return it because it rightly belongs to them. You can't disagree with that."

Tucker stood in the back of the room, watching the rest of us argue over his sword moodily. He was unusually quiet, sheathing and unsheathing the glowing weapon with soft whooshes as he waited for us to decide. He had been cranky ever since all his precious videos had been deleted, and his movements with the sword became more agitated as time passed.

Finally, amid our bickering, he stepped toward the doorway.

"You guys are driving me nuts. I'm going to go and return this thing before I change my mind."

"There," I told at the Reds. "See? He's decided what he's going to do. Now let's decide who's going with him. It can't be all of us. That will seem like we're far too suspicious of them."

"But we are!" Sarge replied indignantly.

"Beside the point," I sniffed. "Okay. So. I should probably go with Tucker, since I can actually speak the language. And… Church. I guess you have to come now that you're connected to Tucker."

"Aw, that's adorable," Grif snorted, resulting in angry stares from both the teal soldier and the AI.

"I will come!" Caboose volunteered cheerily, munching on his fourth doughnut. "I will say hello to all of the sleeping aliens! And maybe we can take a nap together!"

I glanced at Donut uneasily. "Um, Donut…"

The pink soldier smiled. "I'm on it," he said, turning to Caboose. "Caboose, why don't you stay here with me? I've got a new cranberry muffin recipe I've been dying to try, and I know that I need some help with the baking!"

Caboose perked up, seemingly having forgotten about his little alien plan already.

"Okay! Maybe I can give one to Sheila!"

I grinned at Donut, who opened his mouth to reply.

"You know, I think I'll stay too," Grif yawned, stretching. "You know, taste-testing the muffins is a pretty important job."

"I have tactical plans to make just in case the worst happens out there!" Sarge said, crossing his arms.

"And I need to help him with that!" Simmons added instantly.

"You guys are a bunch of babies," I muttered. "Okay, fine. Tucker, Church, let's go."


	12. Father's Day, Part VII

The aliens were stationed at the edge of Blood Gulch on the Reds' side in a large clump. Their sophisticated-yet-makeshift tents were scattered in a uniform pattern in the dirt, creating a diamond-shaped group. Even in their sleeping hours they were in attack formation. It was unnerving.

We decided to approach them, not from the direction of Red base, but from the forest around back. They would not expect us to take such measures, and we needed to scope out the area before immersing ourselves in the group. After all, with or without the Reds to join us, we were outnumbered. And… with or without the rest of the Blood Gulchers, we would lose any fight with them in about half a second.

Looping around the back of the camp was no small diversion and would double the time it took to reach the aliens. As we circled Blood Gulch through the trees, I attempted to stay focused on the task before us. We had the sword. We had to give it back. It was our duty. Focus on the sword.

However, my eyes kept wandering to the figure floating so close to Tucker's shoulder. Our eyes met and I looked away quickly, but Church sighed.

"I know what you're thinking," he said to me, causing Tucker's head to turn toward us quizzically. "And I don't know either."

"What are you talking about?" Tucker asked.

"The chip," I said slowly. "I mean, we can't just ignore the fact that Church was left here while his body was gone. We searched the basement, and we know it's not there. But how is that even possible?" I paused, thinking hard. "Yeah, the body might've walked off on its own, but then, would it have had the capability to remove Church from itself?"

"You know, it's a little weird that you're referring to my body as 'it,'" Church pointed out dryly.

"And even if it did have that ability," I continued, ignoring Church. "Why would it want to leave him behind? I didn't think the body was sentient…"

"Yeah, it's a problem, but that's not the problem we have to deal with right now," Tucker responded seriously, looking ahead. "We're almost there."

Just as we caught sight of the camp, we stopped, listening carefully.

_"Time for a meeting,"_ Junior honked at the group. Hearing the strange tongue, Church and Tucker both looked at me expectantly. I stayed silent, listening.

However, I had no need to understand their language in order to perceive what happened next. As soon as Junior barked his orders, the Aliens stood up and walked over to him.

_All_ of the Aliens.

I almost released a yelp of surprise as the dead Aliens their kin had been dragging stretched casually and stood up from the pads on which they had been laying. Tucker and Church both gasped beside me, staring.

They weren't dead.

_"Are you sure we should all be gathering?"_ an Alien, who had two seconds before been dead, asked hesitantly, glancing over his shoulder toward Red base. _"What if they see us?"_

_"You forget how keen our senses are compared to the eyesight of those apes,"_ Junior said dryly. _"I call a full meeting."_

The aliens huddled together in a group around their leader, and my stomach jolted. We had been outnumbered by the Aliens without counting the dead bodies. With their extra soldiers, we were doomed.

_"The humans have until tomorrow to return the sword,"_ Junior reminded them_. "If they do not cooperate, we will simply kill them all."_

_ "Where is it located, then?"_ asked a dark purple Alien that seemed to be the second-in-command.

_"Not far,"_ Junior replied, producing a holographic map and swinging it into the air. I recognized Blood Gulch. Every tree and every rock was exactly in its proper place… except for one feature.

To the northeast, Junior was pointing to what looked like a large blob of metal. We were too far away to read the map clearly, so I frowned and glanced at Church, who had already disappeared from Tucker's shoulder. My eye caught his dim, transparent form creeping closer for a better look.

_ "Without my father's key, we cannot access it,"_ Junior explained. _"Once we are in possession of the key, we will be able to leave this horrid place with every bit of the technology we were able to salvage from the war. …As well as some valuable human technology."_

My mouth hung open in horror. We had determined Tucker's sword was in fact not a key but a relic. For—for blessing the dead.

For blessing the dead which were not dead at all anymore.

They had lied to us.

"It's a ship!" Church whispered urgently in my ear, shaving about three years off my life as I jumped in surprise at his return. "There's a ship close to here, and they need the key to run it!"

"That's not just a ship," I breathed, getting a better look at the map as Junior expanded the image for the other Aliens. "That's a mastership. An Alien _mastership."_

_ "Once we can fly our beauty,"_ Junior continued. _"We will be able to take our revenge on the dirty hunks of meat that call themselves humans. Perhaps we cannot smite the entire race. Perhaps we cannot win a war. But since they have killed so many of us, assassination of their most powerful leaders might teach them a lesson."_

The Aliens chuckled, and I staggered back in horror. My head spinning, I grabbed Tucker's armor and dragged him back through the trees. Once I was confident we were out of their very far-reaching earshot, I let out a loud, terrified breath.

"If they get their hands on your sword, they're going to go on some sort of killing spree!" I squeaked. "They—they don't want to bless their dead with your sword. They don't even _have_ any dead! They just want revenge on the human race for winning the war!" I sat down on a nearby rock, pressing my face into my hands.

"How is that even possible?" Tucker replied, pacing. "We won the war. They don't have the capability—"

"No, Tucker, that's what you don't understand!" I replied shakily. "That wasn't just any normal ship. It's a mastership. There were only a few of those ever built by the Aliens during the war, and they caused devastating damage wherever they were brought into action. The second we won, we took note of and disassembled all of the masterships so they couldn't fight against us anymore!

"If they get that mastership operating, they're going to go and try killing all the powerful human politicians they can—and maybe take out a few million civilians while they're at it. This will be the start of another war!"

"I just don't get it," Church said, confused. "If the UNSC went and combed through all the Aliens' weapons, how the hell did this massive ship escape the radar?"

I looked up at him regretfully. Was it not obvious? "The same reason you, Alpha, escaped the radar for so long. Blood Gulch is the_ middle of nowhere."_

I paused, and we were momentarily silent.

"So…" Tucker said slowly with a nervous chuckle. "What's our plan to saving the human race?"


	13. Father's Day, Part VIII

Despite the darkness of the woods, Church's floating figure lit the surrounding area in an eerie blue glow. I followed along closely behind him and Tucker, looking through the trees tentatively as we went along.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" I asked, my pistol at the ready for any Alien interruptions.

"Positive," Church replied confidently. "I've got that map engrained in my system. I know exactly where the ship is."

"How do you know we're even going to be able to fly it?" Simmons whispered.

"That's why we were dragged along, silly!" Donut answered cheerfully. "Everyone knows you and Sarge could handle any sort of ship thrown our way."

"Damn right!" Sarge was striding along in the front of the group next to Tucker, his chest puffed out. "Simmons, you should learn to kiss ass more effectively. Like Donut's doin' right there!"

Grif's head darted nervously from side to side as he gazed in every direction of the wood. "We've never been in this area before," he said nervously. I wondered whether he knew just how close he was huddling to Simmons. "What if there are bats?"

"There aren't any bats," Simmons snapped, shaking Grif off. "Stop being a pussy."

Grif glared. "No. You're right. This grass is so tall. We should be looking out for snakes instead."

Simmons froze with a yelp. "_Snakes?_ We have to—"

"Shut up, the both of ya!" Sarge growled. "You're gonna have a hell of a lot more to deal with than flying rodents and legless lizards if you don't close those traps!"

Before Simmons and Grif could open their mouths to complain again, we stepped into a clearing and Church gave a laugh of triumph while the rest of us gasped in shock.

Before us lay an enormous abandoned ship of obvious Alien descent. The body of it curved gracefully, its metal sheets overlapping to form a large insect-like shape. The purple coloring of the ship was highlighted by faded green lights, and exotic turrets with the firepower of ten ships hung tantalizingly below the wings as if poised to release its devastating rockets on any passerby.

"This is it," Church said to us, as if we couldn't recognize the dangerous piece of Alien technology. "Hurry, let's get on!"

"Ells, wouldn't this count as stealing Alien technology, just like your boss said?" Tucker asked as we opened the doors and clambered aboard the ship.

"I think we can make a judgment call in this case," I laughed. "When the Aliens are planning on wiping out part of the humans in revenge, I don't think that giving them the means to do that is a great idea."

As we walked through the hollow corridors of the ship, we couldn't help but examine all of the weapons the Aliens had collected in the aftermath of the war. Countless Alien guns, explosives, and even some smaller ships were scattered throughout the vessel, all mostly intact.

"Didn't the Aliens mention that they had stolen some human technology?" I asked, suddenly remembering the conversation we had overheard. Tucker and Church both gave me confused looks, and I remembered that _we_ had not overhead the conversation._ I_ had. "I—well—okay, obviously, you guys weren't able to understand—okay, whatever." I backtracked. "The Aliens said that they had stolen some human technology. Do you guys recognize anything from around here?"

"We don't have time to go exploring right now!" Church insisted. "Let's just enact our plan first, and if it even works, we'll worry about that later, okay?"

After getting lost about four times, we finally made it to the cockpit. Sarge and Simmons sat down at the main flight terminals and beckoned Tucker over. On the dashboard, there lay hundreds of flight controls, screens, dials and buttons. However, under the main power source there only was inlaid a delicate hole, thin and deep and in the shape of just one thing we owned.

"Well… here goes nothing," Tucker sighed. He unsheathed his glowing sword, flicked it on, and dug it into the power outlet in one graceful stab.

The entire cockpit immediately whirred to life.

We were in business.

* * *

I was shocked at how fast we learned to fly the Alien's mastership. With the thousands of controls littering the dashboard, I thought we would never get the hang of it. However, Tucker seemed to have an instinct regarding which dials indicated which functions; between his gut feeling and my ability to read the Alien language, we were able to get off the ground with Sarge working the steering. I was useless except for barking orders and directing the Reds and Blues at Alien controls they would otherwise be unable to decipher.

"All right, all right! Let's get back to the canyon and see what we can do with this baby!" Church said, pointing back in the direction we came. Sarge jerkily shot off in the right direction, slamming those of us not wearing seat belts into the far wall.

"I warned you about not buckling up!" called Donut haughtily. He and Caboose were strapped securely into individual seats and looked rather as if they were enjoying an entertaining film in the theater. They had been completely unphased by the ship's sudden movement.

"Shut up, Donut," Grif groaned, rolling slowly back up. I panted slightly as I stood up, rubbing the right side of my ribs hard.

We set off toward the box canyon, reaching the area in a matter of minutes. We braced ourselves for the Alien reactions we knew would happen—the surprise, the shock, the anger. We were prepared.

As soon as the first Alien saw us—one of the ones that had been playing dead before—I reached toward the audio jack and spoke loudly into the amplifier.

_"Do not make one move,"_ I commanded loudly, my honks not sounding especially dignified as they were clouded with the static of the microphone._ "We have your ship and therefore the capability to make you explode where you stand."_

Junior must have commanded every Alien to stop, because they did.

_"How dare you steal our property!"_ he yelled up at us. I was surprised I could understand his faint honks from this high in the air. _"This is against the terms of the Peace Treaty!"_

_"Oh, don't start with that again,"_ I snapped irritably. _"We heard all about your little plan to take out our political leaders!"_

Junior was silent a moment. _"We never said that."_

_"Lies!"_ I blarged. _"We have three witnesses to the act. We will therefore blow you to pieces if you do not cooperate."_

I nodded to Sarge, who promptly set up the enormous rocket launchers in the direction of our foes.

_"What—what do you want?"_ Junior asked, his voice tinted with rage. _"What do you want from us?"_

_"We want you to leave and never return,"_ I replied soberly. _"This is your last chance. You came to us, deceived us, and threatened to hurt our race. Now that we have the firepower, we are telling you that we will not be negotiating with you. We will not be giving you your 'relic' back. In other words, get the hell out."_

_"How?"_ Junior yelled back. _"You have our blasted ship!"_

_"Go to the portal you passed on your way to Blue base,"_ I said calmly._ "A maroon soldier is standing there and will direct you to your home planet, just as you told us you wanted."_

The Aliens hesitated, but I did not.

_"GO NOW."_

One of the Aliens jumped at the severity of my tone and started jogging over to the portal, leaving everything else behind. As if they were lemmings, the others followed suit, and Junior began swearing at them so fast I could hardly understand his curses. Finally, with a loathing glance back at the ship, he abandoned the tents as well.

Finally, the group of Aliens, under careful watch from Sarge and his enormous rocket launcher, reached Simmons. He was standing with his own gun at the ready, but even from the sky, I could see his hand shaking in nervousness.

With bated breath, we watched as the Aliens piled grudgingly through the portal. We had set it to go back to their home planet. Junior was in the very back of the queue, and, before he stepped through, he glared back up to the ship and honked loudly:

_"I'll be back, father!"_

He jumped through the portal and Simmons slammed on the dials to force it shut, but no quiet swoosh emanated through the box canyon. Instead, a deafening crack rang through and flung Simmons back ten feet.

Then, the portal exploded.


	14. Can We Keep Him?, Part I

"Simmons!" Grif yelped, staggering backward.

"Sarge, get this thing back on the ground!" I yelled; Simmons was motionless on the grass. Sarge set his jaw and steered the mastership downward with Tucker's help. We landed somewhat gracefully in the field behind Red base and bolted out toward Simmons.

"Simmons!" Donut cried worriedly as we approached him. I kneeled beside him and ripped his helmet off. "Simmons, wake up!"

I shook him a little, and he groaned, slowly coming back to consciousness. "Wha…"

Grif collapsed beside Simmons. "You idiot!" he snorted, but I saw anxiety lining his face. "What the hell did you do to the portal?"

After another moan, Simmons sat up shakily. "I didn't do a damn thing. The Aliens…"

I perked up and ran over to the portal, which Sarge was already examining. Its metal frame was burnt black, and the sheet of glowing transport material was entirely gone. Where there should have been greenish light that could lead us to any part of the galaxy at Simmons's bidding, all we could see was the sand and dirt of Blood Gulch. For all practical purposes, the portal was now just a broken metal frame.

Simmons grunted as he stood up, wobbling some. "Junior broke our portal from the other side. Made it—made it explode as they reached their planet. Now it's completely shot."

"Why the hell would they want to do that?" Church asked, floating toward us.

"Revenge," I murmured, remembering the Aliens' words. "They're all sore losers from not being able to carry out their plan." I didn't mention that Junior had threatened to return. Perhaps he had shorted out the portal out of spite, but he was definitely not giving up for the future.

"Well, this isn't that big of a deal," Donut shrugged. "We have a bunch of other portals in the canyon. We can just use those if we need to."

We nodded in assent but headed in different directions just to check the portals. Upon further inspection, we realized that the transporters were all connected, and, therefore, all dead.

"Damn it," Tucker muttered back at Blue base, running his fingers along their blackened portal. "They're just as bad as the AIs."

Church scoffed. "Come on, Tucker, don't you identify with the portals now? They're just as singed as you get when you use them. You guys should be pals."

"Shut up."

"How's your portal, Reds?" I called through the radio signal. "Any luck?"

"None," Sarge growled. "They're all broken on this side."

I sighed. "Same here."

"You know, I don't get why you guys are so upset about all this," Grif yawned, his radio crackling. "I mean, didn't we just find a huge-ass Alien mastership? We can go wherever we want!"

Tucker looked at us. "He's… right, you know."

"I…" Something occurred to me. "And now, the UNSC won't be able to track where we go. Which means we have free reign. Hmm." I didn't know what to make of this development. It might be advantageous not to have to be tracked all the time. It would certainly help in finding and capturing the AIs.

Oh, wait.

The AIs.

_"Shit," _I growled, remembering everything suddenly. "God damn it. If it's not one problem, then it's another."

"What?" Church asked.

The Alien invasion had been a complete and utter distraction from the real mission. And now… we were back to square one.

"Do you realize how far behind we are now?" I snapped, irritable. "This fiasco with Tucker's kid has put us way behind schedule! Who knows where the hell the AIs are now, and, to top everything off, Wyoming is trying to find them too!"

"Listen, Eleven, let's just take this one step at a time," Donut said through the radio. "We can't go anywhere with portals now. Maybe we should just get an inventory of that Alien ship to see what we have in there."

"Fine, fine," I muttered, flicking the radio off. "Come on, you guys, let's go check what's in the ship."

The Reds and Blues and I all returned to the mastership, entering it with less trepidation than before. The men were immediately drawn to the various Alien weapons that the ship had amassed, delighted with their finds. I surveyed the new guns as well but left them to enjoy themselves; I wanted to explore the other levels of the ship.

The sheer amount of firepower aboard the mastership was unbelievable. I wandered through piles of transports, jeeps, and hovering cars, unable to tell whether they were actually functional. Some were Alien, some human, and some a grotesque hybrid of the two, welded together awkwardly and lying on the ground like wounded animals.

I continued my trek through the large ship, the excited jabbering of the Blood Gulchers far out of earshot now. The area was deadly quiet, dull Alien lights flickering throughout the area and illuminating it in an eerie, greenish glow. Finally reaching the apex of the mastership, I stumbled upon the most advanced technology the Aliens had accumulated. I had no idea what most of the gadgets did, but, for some reason, the back of my neck felt somewhat tingly being here.

I rubbed it absent-mindedly, accidentally scratching at the round chip embedded in my flesh and gasping involuntarily. Damn Gamma. And Texas and Meta for implanting him in me.

Quickly drawing my hand away from my neck, I bent down over a large metal table in order to attempt reading the Alien inscriptions embedded in it. I frowned, not understanding the dialect of the writing, only able to make out fragments of what seemed like directions.

_AKSD CAREFUL FFNSE DO NOT AKJIIITFJ CAUTIONARY TACTICS SSIEJGNNAL UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES DKFSLLLLE FIX WILL NOT FIX_

I had no idea what to make of it. Just as I decided to radio the boys, I felt a slight pressure on my boot. Looking down, I saw what every single horror movie had taught me to fear: something slithering around my leg from beneath the table and winding around my ankle.

And, of course, I reacted how any horror movie had taught me to.

"AAAUGH!"

I screeched, falling away from the table and tripping over the thing, falling to the ground. "WHAT THE- !"

Just as soon as it had wrapped around my leg, the thing made an alarmed clicking noise and let go just as quickly, retreating into the shadows of the technology. My heart pounding, I held up my handgun in the direction of the darkness.

"Show yourself!" I commanded. "Show yourself right now!"

The thing emitted a few scattered chirps, and, after a moment, I was bathed in a gentle blue-pink glow. It made a sort of terrified ticking sound, lifting a pinkish, illuminated tentacle shakily into the air, but otherwise made no other movement.

I stared at it. It throbbed quietly, fleshy tentacles sticking out and moving fluidly from a soft and bulbous body. This was no machine. No robot. It was… alive. And I had only ever seen one of these once before.

"A Huragok…" I whispered, though my voice echoed through the chamber. "You're an Engineer."

The small Alien chittered uncertainly, fidgeting with its tentacles.

With slow, deliberate movements, I reached over and turned my radio on.

"Um, guys?" I said quietly.

"What's up, Ells?" Tucker asked. I heard Sarge laughing maniacally in the background with what sounded like some sort of shotgun on steroids.

"I found a Huragok up here," I replied, my eyes never leaving the Engineer.

"A what?" he asked.

"It's an Alien. Humans call it an Engineer. It just… fixes things. Its entire purpose in life is to fix broken things like technology. I just… I can't believe there's one in the ship. I just wanted to warn you not to come up to the top floor for a little bit. It seems… shy."

"What the hell is with all the Aliens around here?" Tucker replied uneasily. "Just be careful, okay? Let us know if there are any problems."

"You got it."

I shut off the radio and crouched down some, which made the Engineer produce a nervous clatter and scramble back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said gently, tucking my gun away. "It's all right, really. How long have you been abandoned on this ship?"

The Alien replied with crackles of sound and the waver of a tentacle, but refused to move closer to me. I sat down slowly and extended my hand. "Really, it's all right. See? I'm not going to hurt you."


	15. Can We Keep Him?, Part II

The Engineer blinked its beady little eyes, staring at my outstretched hand. Slowly, it approached me, clicking curiously. It cocked its head and extended a tentacle toward my fingers, moving lightly over my armor but never actually touching it. It seemed to finally approve of me, because it prodded my hand lightly and floated up in the air, circling me and examining my armor.

I stayed still, allowing the Engineer to inspect the creature that had so rudely invaded its residence. Nothing on my armor was broken, so I had no qualms about letting it near me; there was nothing for it to fix.

The Engineer revolved slowly around me, its beady little eyes fixated on my armor. It seemed satisfied with the front and then moved to the back, tilting its head curiously as it reached the back of my head. It stopped there, staring at what I imagined was the nape of my neck.

"Hey, missy!"

I jumped as Sarge's voice rang in my ear. The sudden movement caused the shy Engineer to float away from me sharply, startled.

"Yes, Sarge?" I asked, turning back to the Engineer and holding my hand out again.

"You've been gone with that Alien a long time!" he said. "Why doncha come back now? We've got a lot of guns to take back to base!"

"Oh, all right. I'll be right there. Just… be nice to our new… um, visitor, all right?"

"I don't like it," Sarge growled. "What makes you think that this Alien doesn't want to kill us too?"

"Just trust me," I replied as the Engineer touched my hand again lightly.

I bid goodbye amid the Red leader's grumbles and stood up straight, stretching my limbs.

"All right," I said to the floating Alien in English, having no idea how to mimic or understand its characteristic clicks. "I'm going back to where the other humans are. You can come with me too, if you'd like. It's probably lonely in this room by yourself with nothing to fix."

I started walking slowly toward the exit door and turned when I reached it. The Engineer had not moved and was just watching me quietly. When I opened the door, however, it chittered and began floating toward me immediately.

As we made our way to the Reds and Blues, the Engineer clicked excitedly, darting around to all the different broken pieces of technology. I was forced to stop at least twice as it happily fixed the ship's broken weapons and transport vehicles. Some were mended to be as good as new, while others—to my dismay—were fixed in only the loosest sense of the word. The Engineer managed to turn a slightly cracked handgun into a fully functional toaster in a matter of minutes, and I knew that we would have to be extremely careful with our visitor.

"Hey, everyone," I said calmly as I finally entered the main room, the Engineer floating along behind me. "I found us a new—and extremely shy—friend."

"What the… how does a floating jellyfish fix high-tech weapons and stuff?" Grif asked skeptically.

"It's just what they do," I shrugged as the Engineer floated curiously to the Blood Gulchers. "But, listen, sometimes they won't fix things up in the… uh… conventional sense."

"What do you mean?" Church asked.

I held up the toaster to them. "This was a handgun about five minutes ago."

* * *

Back outside, the Engineer seemed nervous to be out in the sunlight with so many weirdly-colored creatures. It stuck closely to my side, but as we walked, it floated uncannily close to the back of my head, as if it were staring at something there. I would turn and shoo it away, so it would go beside me again, but, without fail, its unblinking stare would return to the back of my head within minutes.

"What on earth are you doing?" I asked, half exasperated, pushing it gently away from my head again. "What do you keep _staring_ at?"

"Here, Ells, let's see if it can fix the portal," Tucker suggested as we reached the blackened metal frame. I gently pushed the Engineer toward the technology, and the others watched.

"Go on," I encouraged. "It's broken. Don't you want to fix it?"

The Engineer clattered again and began floating around the dead portal. Simmons's eyes widened as it settled down and got to work, its tentacles spreading all over the device's controls. We were quiet for a few minutes, the only sound we could hear the Engineer's scattered clicks and the tinkering of the portal.

After about ten minutes of work, the Engineer emitted a small satisfied click and floated away. Simmons turned the portal on, and, to our astonishment, the glowing material that normally stayed within the metal frame snapped to life perfectly.

"It's working!" the maroon soldier said excitedly. He started flicking the controls. "Wow, this is fantastic!" He turned to us. "Come on, someone should try it out!"

We looked at each other uneasily, and, somehow, all our gazes fell on a certain aqua soldier. He stepped back a little.

"No way!" Tucker snapped indignantly. "I'm not going to try it!"

I raised an eyebrow at him, crossing my arms. The others looked on at him, smirking.

He showed us his palms, stuttering irately, until our silence overpowered him.

"Fine."

He stomped into the portal and appeared immediately at Blue base's unit. I laughed out loud, seeing no more aqua on his armor. He immediately turned and came back, muttering incoherently, his armor covered in black.

"Well, it works," Grif grinned. "Now program it to take us to a nice restaurant. I'm starving."

Simmons knelt and fiddled with the portal again while the Engineer floated quietly toward Caboose, watching him carefully.

"There," Simmons said after about a minute. "Okay, Tucker, I have it set on an Earth diner. See if it works."

Tucker rolled his eyes and stepped through, but nothing happened save for a startled yelp at Red base's portal.

Simmons frowned. "Well. This could be a problem."

Tucker came back, an even deeper shade of charcoal. "Looks like the Engineer only set it to travel through Blood Gulch," he said moodily.

"He's right," Simmons replied, trying to work with the portal, but to no avail. He sat back and sighed. "We're stuck in the canyon now."

"Let's just… head back to base," I sighed, suddenly exhausted. "Can we please just take the day to recover now that we don't have Aliens or Freelancers or AIs attacking us at the moment?"

Even Sarge, the ultimate go-getter, nodded. "I think it's time to go home—"

"Really?" Grif perked up.

"—And start training for the next crisis!" The Red leader finished. The other members of his team groaned.

"Where's Engie going to stay?" Caboose asked, petting the little Alien happily. "Can we keep him? Oh please, oh please, oh please!"

I looked upon them both skeptically. "What if he accidentally breaks the base trying to fix it?"

"It's not broken," Church shrugged. "There's nothing to fix."

"Um… well… all right," I relented. I was too tired to argue. "Come on. I just need to take a nap. I hardly even know what relaxation means anymore."


	16. Reconnection

We tiredly separated ways, the Blood Gulchers all trudging back to their respective bases. The Engineer stuck close to either Caboose or me, seemingly undecided between which one of us needed its attention most. For Caboose, it simply seemed curious with his whole entity—perhaps it was perplexed by the state of Caboose's mind. It was certainly not in ship-shape condition, and the Engineer had no means to fix it.

However, I had no idea why it was attracted to me. I had to wave it roughly from my helmet about three times on our way back to base, probably hurting its feelings in the process.

By the time we reached Blue base, all I wanted was to sleep. That was it. It was still early, and I normally would wait hours before going to bed, but I couldn't help myself. I was hardly paying attention to the Engineer as Caboose played with it in the living room. I just needed to fall into bed and actually get a normal REM cycle in.

I didn't bother filing a report. My job could wait another day.

I only briefly said good night to the others before collapsing into my bed, asleep before my head hit the pillow.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up relatively refreshed. Rolling out of bed, I checked my directions from Hale. As soon as I began filing one of my mandatory reports on the Alien crisis, I remembered my previous conversation with Hale and stopped. I had neglected to complete one of his very specific directions, and, now that I didn't have to think about Aliens attacking me every time I stepped outside, there was no reason I couldn't make rounds to see if they had dropped any supplies or weapons in the surrounding forest area. After all, we had no idea how long they had been around Blood Gulch before coming into our midst, and I was in no way interested in stumbling across some surprise bomb in the future—or, even worse, encountering a member of the Alien group they had left behind.

I extracted from my closet only a few choice parts of my armor, snapping on a few small pieces of my uniform, including my utility belt. Other than that, I donned exercise clothing, stuffed my hair in a ponytail, and snuck quietly from the base.

For the first time in a while, I was perfectly happy to complete a superior's directive. Hale was right—going for a run would certainly help to clear the stress from my mind. As I headed out in a slow jog, I furrowed my brow, trying to remember exactly what he had said. _A run around the canyon._

I shrugged internally at recalling his words; there was no reason why I couldn't take a circular route around Blood Gulch. Hopefully, such a perimeter check would guarantee that the Aliens and their technology were no longer in our area. I jogged lightly and quietly, my ears and eyes open to any signs of foreign technology or life. I fortunately did not encounter any and settled into a steady jog once I had exited the canyon.

I had barely broken a sweat before reaching the caves. Slowing down considerably, I peered between the rocks, searching for any foreign objects. I immediately spotted something that the Aliens had dropped and stopped abruptly. I couldn't tell what it was from where I stood—only that it was small, round, and pale.

The object was lying inside one of the caves about twelve feet in. I crept closer to collect the item and just passed the entrance to the cave before I heard a sharp crackle.

I paused, snapping my head up to stare into the cave's darkness and immediately regretting my decision not to wear more armor. Grabbing my only weapon—a small pistol—I held it up to the blackness, painfully aware of my lack of protection.

Another rustle came from inside the cave, and I backed up a few steps.

"I'm armed!" I threatened.

"So am I."

A figure stepped out of the darkness and my jaw dropped. The object I had seen hadn't been left by an Alien at all.

"_Wash!"_

The Freelancer exited the shadows completely, holding a gun but not pointing it at me. A helmet lay on the ground, the item I thought the Aliens had left. As my eyes began adjusting to the darkness, I saw a well-hidden abode reaching to the far end of the cave. He had set up a makeshift bed, food storage area, and weapon-cleaning station.

"Hey, Eleven."

He had a guilty half-smile on his face. The pistol fell from my grasp as I ran toward the Freelancer, my surprise instantly melting into anger.

"You _lied_ to me!" I screeched, my rage echoing through the cave. Wash looked away guiltily, and I raised an open hand, smacking him hard on the face. He winced.

"You said you were leaving! That you would do your best to stay away from Command! And all this time you were hiding in a damn cave? You couldn't have told me that you were nearby? You made me think _I would never see you again!"_

Guilt was etched in his face. "Eleven, I—"

"What's more, we needed you!" I yelled, by face red with fury. "We needed your help! How dare you lie to me, make me think that you had exploded in that ship! We had aliens attacking us all around while you were just relaxing in a cave!"

"Aliens came here after I left?" he gasped.

"Yes, you piece of shit!" I spat. "We almost got ourselves killed and you could have been there to back us up! You made me think _you were dead!"_

I balled my hand in a rage-filled fist and lunged at the Freelancer to punch him in the jaw. He looked up just in time, inhaled sharply, and curled his fingers around my hand, stopping my arm mid-strike. My momentum kept me propelling forward, however. My fist may have been halted but my body continued to careen toward Wash.

Before I knew it, I had rammed my lips into his.

Wash twitched violently, his eyes popping open in surprise. I froze, not even realizing that my fist was still trying to connect with his face. How—how had my _lips_ ended up there instead? Finally reacting to the change of events, I gasped. My lips parted at the same time his did, but instead of pulling away, Wash sighed and slipped his tongue toward mine.

Hardly aware of what I was doing, I began winding my lips with his. I suddenly realized that Wash had let go of my fist and grabbed my waist, pulling my hips forward to meet his. My punch was still poised in position. I could still do it. One action would break his jaw.

As if from their own accord, my fingers slowly fell limp. I reached my hand forward not to punch his face, but caress it. My other hand curled in his hair as I deepened the kiss, my eyes drooping closed.

Wash moved forward suddenly and pressed me into the wall of the cave. I growled slightly and bit at his lips, snaking my hand beneath his shirt. Wash's breath caught in his throat and he jerked his hips into me almost automatically. I felt a firmness pressed against my stomach from between his legs, and my heartbeat sped into overdrive as I suddenly felt very warm.

I scrabbled at his shirt, managing to rip it off as he reached down and ran a hand down my thigh, hitching it up and hooking it over his hip. He did the same to the other side, backing away from the wall some, so I threw my arms around his neck to keep from falling. He slowly lowered us to the ground, and, suddenly, I was very, very glad that the cave was pitch black to any passerby.


	17. Can We Keep Him?, Part III

(( A couple of announcements are in order:

First of all, I am still taking minific requests on Eleven's tumblr (agent-eleven), so that is my Christmahanakwanzika present to all of you. If you go to her page and scroll back in time a bit, you'll see the post with the directions and choices.

Also, I've stated this on Eleven's tumblr, but I'll say it here as well: I've been recently informed that some of you aren't drawing Eleven fanart because you don't know what she looks like. I'm quite surprised by this, considering we don't know what half the characters in RvB look like and there's still a ton of art out there for them.

Anyway, my main point is if you have fanart or want to draw some, I would LOVE to see it! I adore seeing different interpretations of Eleven, and seeing some art would certainly make my winter break quite happy. You can submit it either on tumblr or talk to me about it on a PM. :)

FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

This will be my last chapter until January. I have a lot to plan for the upcoming storyline, and I'll need some time to do that. I hope you're as excited about it as I am!

Cheers, and have a lovely New Year! (Of course, If we all survive the apocalypse...)

Stella ))

* * *

"I think I… um…"

"Yes, beautiful?"

"I think I was supposed to be mad at you."

"You were."

"I don't know how _that_ led to _this_…"

I mumbled a few more weak complaints, pecking Wash on the cheek.

"I'm not too upset about the turn of events," he whispered, squeezing me playfully and gently pulling us to a sitting position. He stretched out and brushed some dirt off my back before reaching over and pulling his own shirt on again.

"If Hale hadn't told me to go for a run, I would have never found you…" I continued, shaking my head in wonder and standing up to grab my tank stop (which had somehow ended up on the complete other side of the cave).

Wash smiled. "That sly dog."

I stopped in the middle of pulling my shirt down. "Wait—you aren't surprised?"

Wash chuckled. "He's the one who helped me escape, Ells."

My jaw dropped, and, suddenly, everything seemed to make sense. Hale's odd detachment at hearing that Wash was dead. His calm reasoning at why he had not told me the Freelancer would be arrested. His strange orders for me to go for a _run_, of all things.

"You're kidding."

Wash grinned. "He must have been an amazing actor to have _you_ fooled."

I blinked, nonplussed. "But—but how did you have time…?"

"You were with the Reds. As soon as we reached Blue base and saw the wreckage, I called Hale." Wash walked over to the pile of armor in the corner and began putting on his black under-armor layer. "He told me exactly what to do and how to fool Wyoming and the UNSC. Said to ditch everything, fake my death, and hide in the caves for a while." He turned to me, dressed all in black. "What he didn't tell me is that he'd send you. He told me…"

"What?"

Wash looked down. "Well, he told me to expect not to see you again. Ever. That I would probably have to fake my death to everyone I knew permanently in order to stay out of jail."

"…I know why he did that."

"Why?"

I broke eye contact with the Freelancer. "Because he wanted my reaction to your 'death' to be real. If you really thought you'd have to hide from me forever, I would really believe your emotions as you left. Hale knew that if we both thought we wouldn't see each other again, I would really think you had died. And I would act appropriately at the explosion."

"…Did you?"

"What I don't understand is why he was willing to help you escape," I said quickly, changing the subject. "He broke the law. Just like that. I wouldn't expect my own boss to do that."

"I'm not complaining," Wash shrugged. "I suppose we can ask him that when we thank him for helping me." He glanced in my direction. "Helping us."

He reached down and grabbed his armor, and I saw it properly for the first time.

_Wait..._

"Wash…" I said slowly. "That's… not your armor."

Amid the chaos that had occurred upon entering the cave, I had not given the armor piled in the corner—or the original helmet I had spotted—much attention. I was a little… _busy_ at the time to care that the armor's color was completely, completely different from Wash's characteristic gray.

It was a light, powder blue.

"I can't wear my armor now that I'm a fugitive," Wash replied, slipping on the pieces of Church's armor. He had kept every element intact; the only difference was that he had kept his own yellow highlights.

I stared as I pulled on the rest of my effects, applying what small pieces of my own armor I had decided to bring on my run.

"How the hell did you take it? Church's body was hidden in the basement!"

"It wasn't hard, Ells. I was the one who stuck Church down there to begin with. After I left you, I snuck back in through an open window. Thankfully, I didn't have to talk to Church and coerce him out of the body. He had already left it to go and see what was happening outside. I just left his AI chip where I knew you would find it, disassembled the body, and took the armor. I knew I had a couple hours before the UNSC guys would arrive, so I had plenty of time. Church's now-useless body and the rest of my gray armor are hidden somewhere safe. No one will find it."

I burst out laughing. "He and Tucker are going to be so pissed!"

"Why's that?"

I finished fidgeting with my armor. "Tucker stuck him in his AI slot, and to make more space, Church deleted all his porn. When they find out all of that could have been prevented…"

Wash smirked. "Yeah, I feel so bad for the guy."

"You are such an asshole to him," I complained good-naturedly. "Give Tucker a break, will you?"

"Maybe I will once he stops trying to get into your pants."

I gave the Freelancer a disparaging look. "Yeah. Because there hasn't been enough of _that _action today already."

"Fair. That's a fair point." Wash laughed, grabbing his helmet, weapons, supplies, and striding toward the mouth of the cave. "I almost don't want to leave. This day's been pretty good already."

"I think we could wait… just another moment," I said coyly, walking toward him. His eyebrows raised.

"Well. If you insist."

Our lips met again, and I smiled into the kiss. I placed my hands lightly on his breastplate—I had, during Project Freelancer, perfected the art of kissing someone covered in armor—and leaned in at a comfortable angle. In return, Wash dropped all his supplies and wound one hand in my hair, inhaling contentedly.

He slowly ran his hand from my hair to my jawline, reaching around to the back of my neck to bring me closer. However, as soon as his hand touched the nape of my neck, he froze.

I felt his fingers trace the small chip embedded in my skin and I gasped, breaking our lips apart.

Before I could pull away, Wash spun me around and shoved my hair out of the way, staring at the back of my neck.

_"What—"_

I jumped away from him hastily and covered the chip with my hand, staring in dismay at the Freelancer's anguished face.

"Wash, I…"

His mouth was open and flapping wordlessly. A hand was suspended in in front of him, curling around empty air. I could barely bring myself to look at his eyes, the glassy stare a mixture of confusion, disbelief, and horror.

"You—you—" He gulped, fighting to form words. "You have Gamma _implanted in your mind!"_


	18. Only Deceit, Part I

"I—I told you that!" I sputtered lamely, covering the small chip with my palm as if doing so would erase the metal from the base of my brain completely. "I told you Meta and Tex had stuck me with Gamma—"

"No!" Wash snarled, his eyes on fire. "You never said they had implanted Gamma's chip in your _skin!"_

"I—I didn't want you to worry—"

"You made it seem like they had just stuck the chip in your armor—like—like Tucker has for Church! And that you had just managed to take him out! You never said—"

"I'm sorry, all right? I was going to find a way out of this myself!"

"Liar!" Wash growled, grabbing me again. "Don't you see, Eleven? He's already infiltrating your mind!"

"No, Wash! He's not! He—"

"Listen to yourself!" he shook me slightly. "You're lying to yourself now, too! He must have completely taken over and—"

I wrenched myself out of Wash's grasp and backed up out of his reach. "Would you listen to me for two goddamn seconds? Gamma is dormant!"

Wash narrowed his eyes at me. "You expect me to believe that, Gamma?"

"Are you joking?" I snarled. "If Gamma were active right now, would I have stuck around Blood Gulch this long? Wouldn't I have run away with my body and tried to return to Meta, Tex and the other AIs? Why would I have waited around with the Blood Gulchers and then—and when I found you, if I had Gamma, why the _hell_ would I—I—"

Wash had stopped and was staring at me; something seemed to click in his mind.

"I—oh. You—you would have never…" He paused, struggling for words. "You're right."

"Damn right I am!" I muttered, striding past him. "Now, are you ready to listen to what really happened, or am I going to have to try punching you again?"

Wash bit his lip and cracked a small smile experimentally. "Well, if it leads to what the last one did…"

I rolled my eyes. "You're an idiot. Let's go."

We finally set off from the cave and walked back toward Blue base as I explained everything that had occurred with Gamma. True, I had been vague when Wash had asked me about the implantation before, but hell if I wanted all of them to know I still had Gamma. We had been distracted by the prison and Meta and Tex at the time anyway. They hadn't needed to be burdened by even more problems.

When we reached the base, we were met by yet another uproar from the Blues at seeing Wash—to make things worse, the Reds had come over to visit and discuss the Engineer's doings (Sarge insisted that it could make some great improvements on the Warthog). When they saw a soldier encased in Church's armor, pandemonium reigned for at least ten minutes before Wash finally ripped off his helmet and explained himself. By the time everyone had settled down, Donut surveyed the scene amusedly while Church fumed.

"That is my armor!" he yelled, making Tucker wince at the volume. "You stole it! You—"

"I had to!" Wash protested, squirming uneasily in the foreign suit. "I couldn't use my own! If anyone sees that combination of gray and yellow around these parts, I'll get mowed down in about two seconds."

"But those guys left a long time ago," Simmons interrupted. "They think you're dead."

"Yeah," Wash retorted. "And what happens when they see me back? Unlike some of us, I can't exactly pull off being a ghost."

Tucker folded his arms crossly, glowering. "Because of you, I've lost all my files. Every single one since Church moved in here!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Wash replied, his tone brimming with sarcasm. "How unfortunate that that's the only action you'll ever get."

I could see this escalating to something bad from twelve miles away, so I stepped in between them hastily as Tucker's face darkened with indignation.

"Okay," I said slowly and emphatically. My syllables seemed to shock them back to this world. "Wash is back. And he's using Church's armor. Let's move on."

"What exactly is going on here?" Wash asked before anyone could berate him again for Church's and Tucker's losses. "You said something about Aliens."

"Maybe if you had _been_ here—" Donut began pointedly.

"We had a bit of a family reunion," I interrupted, proceeding to explain what had happened quickly to Wash, hardly even taking breaths. No one was going to stop my explanation this time.

"This is ridiculous," Wash said, shaking his head. "It's not like we have enough to deal with at the moment. Now we have some idiotic Alien issue on top of finding more than the two damned AIs we have now!"

The group stopped chattering a moment and looked over at the Freelancer.

"…Two?" Sarge asked, his voice dropping confusedly.

"No—no, just one," I tittered nervously. "We only have one, and that's Chu—"

"Eleven still has Gamma."

Wash's tone was emotionless and even; I turned and glared at him with a spark of renewed fury as the canyon exploded in chaos again. Only two figures stayed still; Washington and Church. The latter had been staunch to me—he had known that I had Gamma, but had respected the fact that the others _did not need to know that_ until I figured out how to get rid of him.

"You still have Gamma?"

"I thought he was gone!"

"How is this possible?"

"You've been acting so normal!"

I rubbed my forehead, my head pounding with the noise.

"Thank you, Agent Washington, for giving them that information," I said angrily, waving them off. "They really needed to know that."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Simmons asked, highly affronted.

"If you didn't notice, we've been busy trying to save our skins ever since we came back," I snapped. "Or was the prison, the bases on fire, Wash getting killed and the Aliens attacking not enough for you?"

"She has a point, you know…" Grif shrugged.

"I don't understand," Donut asked, his wide eyes worried. "Your AI slot looks empty."

"It is," I admitted, taking my helmet off in resignation and sweeping my hair out of the way, exposing the base of my neck. "They—they implanted Gamma completely. He's not connected to my armor… he's connected to my brain."

The Reds and Blues exchanged fearful looks as if I were suddenly some sort of monster.

"So—so why are you still acting normal?"

I sighed, glancing over at Church with a pleading look. _Help._

"Long story short, she was able to shut Gamma down. He's dormant right now."

Thank God for Church. It would have taken me at least an hour to explain what he had simplified to two sentences.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I replied firmly. "Listen, we need to focus, all right? I know I wasn't completely honest with you, but we have more important—"

"Wrong." Wash held up his hand. "The other AIs can wait. Our primary goal now is to get Gamma out of you. We have no way of knowing how long you'll manage to keep him turned off."

I shook my head. "No! We have a job to do." I turned to the others. "Come on, you guys know what the priority is."

"Yeah, we surely do," Sarge replied gruffly. "Our priority is to get that tricky piece of metal out of your brain, missy."


	19. Only Deceit, Part II

"This is insane," I snapped. "We don't have time for this. We need to find the other AIs!"

"We have found one," Wash pointed out. "If we get Gamma out of your head, we'll be one step closer to finding the others."

"Besides, the AIs naturally want to be together—to be whole," Church reminded us. "If they're gone from Gamma too long, you know they'll come looking. They know exactly where he is, thanks to Meta and Tex. And hell if we want them to forcibly rip Gamma out."

I flinched, remembering Wyoming. "Fine. Okay. But how exactly do you suggest we go about doing this? We need the right removal equipment. Where are we going to find another _Mother of Invention_?"

"We don't have to," Church floated quietly, looking up to the sky. "There's a Project Freelancer storage facility that we and the Reds have been to before. There's an implantation and removal system there. And they work. I think."

"That _won't_ work," Wash interrupted. "You know that. I destroyed that facility back when I tried to EMP all the AIs."

Church glared at him skeptically. "And look at how well that plan worked out. Obviously, if the EMP was a fake, all the other equipment shouldn't be broken either. Besides," he added, nodding to the Engineer. "We have our own personal fix-it system if we need it."

We spent the rest of the day planning and preparing to enter the storage facility.

"What if we find another army of Texes?" Donut asked worriedly over homemade taco salad dinner. Grif tensed and jerked his hands between his legs.

"We'll figure that out when we get there," Wash waved them off. "Let's just focus on the removal system. That's the most important thing."

"I remember seeing it," Tucker said. "I just don't remember where."

"Third floor below ground level."

We all stared at Church, and he shrugged. "What? I'm technically the Director. Why wouldn't I know something like that?"

As we worked, the Engineer floated serenely around us, holding the back scratcher it had somehow created from Donut's old tea strainer.

"Looks like it likes you," Wash commented as if floated toward me for the fourth time. I pushed it away gently once more, shrugging.

With our plan firmly in place, the Blues and Wash left Red base to return to their rooms and get some rest before our travels the next day. Given the state of the portals, we decided to take our convenient new Alien mastership. I decided to stay with the Reds a little longer to help with the dishes. The Engineer also did not float away with the Blues, to Caboose's chagrin. It had probably become rather attached to the back scratcher. Donut didn't mind; he had two other high-quality tea strainers. Where he had gotten them, I had no idea.

"So," Donut said, his fake casual voice about as transparent as glass. "Wash is back."

"Mm hmm," I replied, scrubbing the grime from one of the pans. The Engineer floated close by, its beady eyes watching us curiously.

"Guess you're pretty happy about that."

"Well, it's a good thing he's not dead, yes. I wouldn't have wanted that on my hands. On a mission."

Donut watched me closely. "I mean… _really_ happy about that."

I took off my helmet, glaring at Donut. "Do you want to say something, Donut?" The Engineer immediately floated closer to me as if magnetized.

Donut gave me the once-over and chuckled. "Nothing you don't already know. Especially considering you have a lovely purple splotch on your neck." I growled as the Engineer tilted its body and stared down at my neck from behind. "Even the little Alien notices."

I crossed my arms. "I fail to see why it matters."

Donut's smirk fell and he was suddenly serious. "You know you can't keep living like this, Ells."

"Like what?"

The Engineer touched my neck lightly, but I paid it no attention as I stared Donut down.

"Like _this_!" Donut cried, exasperated. He threw his arms into the air. "I hope you realize you're going to have to choose eventually."

"Choose?" I ignored the tentacle snaking around my armor.

Donut pursed his lips. "Choose whether your favorite color is aquamarine or gray and yellow."

At that moment, I heard a sharp click and jolted. The Engineer had its tentacles all over the top half of my armor, and I had no idea what it was doing. Another jolt, and the lights on my armor flashed brightly. Something was turning, screwing on, wires were moving. The Engineer was… fixing me.

Before I could react—before I could even raise my hand—I felt a cold tentacle press against the back of my neck, and heat seared my skin. My armor lights flashed on once more, staying on and humming with life.

_"Well, hello there, Agent Eleven. We meet again."_


	20. Only Deceit, Part III

The pan dropped to the ground with a clang.

"No!" I shrieked, staggering backward and clutching the back of my neck. Donut jumped about three feet in the air, then leapt forward and pried Engineer from my armor. It floated away serenely.

_"Oh, yes,"_ the silvery voice said. _"Your little friend has done me the honor of bringing me out of dormancy."_

Donut's eyes widened. "You—you're Gamma?"

_"No,"_ Gamma snapped, his voice reverberating from the speakers in my armor. _"I am a fluffy kitten. Meow."_

"Well, geez, you don't have to be—"

_"I am not happy with you, Agent Eleven."_

"Y—" I sputtered, still unable to believe what was happening. "You—how—"

_"Although your Alien has fixed me, in a sense, your little attack has rendered me quite powerless," _Gamma said irritably. _"I am now operational but quickly realizing my limitations. I cannot take over your body nor force you to live in my deliciously fictional world. I cannot even show a hologram of myself to be the little angel on your shoulder. Pity."_

"How do I know you're not lying?" I asked suspiciously. "You're not exactly a program of virtue."

Gamma growled, a rattling, mechanical sound. _"If I had the ability to control you, Agent Eleven, your friends would be dead and your body would be halfway across the galaxy by now to meet back with my siblings. I have not even the capacity to extract myself from your pitiful excuse for a brain."_

I sighed in relief momentarily; I would not suffer the same fate Wyoming did.

_"Oh yes, how pleasant for you,"_ Gamma responded bitingly. _"You will not go insane like my dear friend Reginald did. All those knock knock jokes. Congratulations."_ He paused. _"…At least, while you are awake."_

"What?"

I could feel Gamma shrug inside my head. It was unsettling.

_"You know how much weaker a human mind becomes when asleep. It becomes so… vulnerable. Exposed."_ He chuckled. _"I may yet be able to have some fun with you. I just must wait until you fall asleep."_

Donut and I looked at each other in panic before he scooped up the half-washed pan and dropped it into the sink.

"That's it. We don't have time to wait until tomorrow. We have to leave tonight." Gamma growled again, but we refused to respond. "Eleven, go get the Blues and Wash. I'll round up the others. Hurry."

I nodded, speeding out of Red base and running toward the other side of Blood Gulch.

_"Do not get your hopes up,"_ Gamma sneered. _"You will not make it to the extraction site in time. Your frail human body will give in to slumber before then… and then I will get my revenge on you."_

I was quiet, but I could not hide the anxious thoughts whirring through my mind. _"Do you realize what I could make you experience?" _he asked with venom. _"I can make you relive your worst nightmares. Your deepest fears."_

_Lying. He's lying,_ I thought, though fear seeped into my mind. He knew. He knew exactly what my worst memory was.

_"Yes, my dear, I do,"_ Gamma laughed. _"And allow me to tell you that it is just adorable how terrified you are of AIs now as a consequence. Just precious, really."_

"Shut up."

_"It makes perfect sense, though,"_ Gamma continued. _"And…"_ his voice dropped dangerously. _"If you think that that is your worst memory, imagine reliving it over. And over. And over. No way to stop it. No way to tell when it begins and ends. No way to relieve the pain."_ He paused, letting the thought sink in. _"Oh, and, by the way,"_ he added. _"I will certainly have no qualms multiplying that agony tenfold."_

I gasped but ignored him, hurtling into Blue base. The others were still awake, watching reruns of old Grifball games. I skidded into the doorway, and the others looked at me, puzzled.

"Ells?" Tucker asked. "What's—"

"We have to go now!" I cried.

_"Oh, yes, yes, do hurry,"_ Gamma chimed in lazily.

The boys heard Gamma's voice and chaos ensued.

Caboose smiled, asking where our new friend was hiding. Tucker—and, sliding along with him, Church—fell off the couch in surprise. Wash lunged at me, crashing into me and pinning me to the ground.

"Gamma!" he snarled, pointing a pistol at my forehead.

_"Well, well, well,"_ Gamma responded smoothly as I stared at Wash in shock. _"Speak of the Devil."_

"Wash!" I stammered. "What do you expect to do, shoot me? He can't extract himself from my head!"

"Shut him down, Eleven," Wash growled. "Hurry."

"I can't! The Engineer turned him on!"

"Just try!"

"Gamma," I said as commandingly as possible. "Shut down."

We were greeted with more metallic laughter.

_"Oh, of course. Right away, your highness,"_ Gamma said, his tone poisoned with malice. _"Do you really think _commanding_ me to shut off will do the trick? You are even more unintelligent than I originally thought."_

"I guess the Engineer fixed him more than we anticipated," I muttered, rubbing my ear. That laughter had been loud.

"We can't afford to wait, then," Wash relented, hesitatingly putting away his gun and helping me to my feet. "You're right. Let's get going. Everyone, collect your things. We head out tonight."


	21. Only Deceit, Part IV

The boys treated me as if I might shatter at any moment—or as if I might go insane. Wash irritatingly stripped me of my weapons, insisting that we could not know, really, how strong Gamma was.

On the ship, they continued to shoot me wary glances. Gamma found this all very amusing, laughing at my frustration and mocking me loudly in that disgusting monotone of his.

"Jesus, can't you at least turn the volume on him down?" Grif complained.

"If she could, she probably would have done it already," Tucker replied. "I can't tell you how many times I've tried to get Church to shut up."

"Hey!"

"How long is it going to take to get there?" Donut asked the pilots—Sarge, Wash, Simmons and Tucker. "Should we have tried to fix the portal instead?"

"With the Engineer's handiwork, I have no way of knowing how long that would take," Simmons explained, shaking his head. "Better off just using what works. Once the GPS here calculates our location and the location of the Freelancer Storage Facility…"

We waited a few moments until the Alien computers transmitted our request.

"Oh, no…" Simmons said. "It'll take about a day to get there. A day!"

"You're kidding!" Grif groaned. "We're stuck on this ship for a whole day?"

"Stupid piece of Alien junk," Tucker added.

I bit my lip. Could I possibly stay awake long enough to make that? Could I last another 24 hours?

"Eleven, you're okay with that?" Wash asked me. I looked up, my brow knit.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"You're a terrible liar," Gamma piped in. "She's exhausted."

"Shut up!" I snapped. "No, don't listen to him. I'm fine. I'm not tired at all."

"You know, you can take a nap on the way there," Donut suggested. "You could use some beauty sleep, you kno—"

"No!" I interrupted hurriedly. The others stared. "I—I can't. I can't sleep."

"What are ya talkin' about, missy?" Sarge demanded. "'Course you can."

"If I fall asleep, he'll be able to do things to my mind." I swallowed. "He said he'd—he'd be able to make me relive my worst memory."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wash tense, but I refused to look at him.

"Let's just get there fast." I stood up and started pacing. "And be sure to stay loud. I am not going to doze off because you, of all people, were too quiet."

Wash looked at me a moment and then set his jaw. "No."

"Excuse me?"

He grabbed the controls and spun the ship around. "We're not going to the Freelancer Storage Facility."

"Oh? Then where are we going?"

"The _Mother of Invention_."

I stared. "Wash. That won't help. You know what happened after it crashed. The AI removal system won't be—"

"We can't afford to risk going to the facility. I've located the _MoI _and it's only about a couple of hours away from here."

I peeked over at the new map he had conjured. "In the opposite direction!"

"Aren't you willing to take that risk?" Wash glared. "I am not going to have you fall asleep. The storage facility is just too far away."

"How do you know that the AI removal system will still even be there?"

"It was built into the ship. Even if all the memory has been removed, we have a secret weapon." He gestured to the little floating Alien tickling Caboose with its tentacles. "We can see if the Engineer can do some handiwork."

I was skeptical, but Wash would not be swayed.

We were visiting the _Mother of Invention_.

* * *

When we reached the deserted planet, part of me wished the _Mother of Invention_ would be gone. Removed. Confiscated and torn apart.

It was there. Still in the crash position, an empty, massive behemoth of dented metal and cracked windows. I could hardly bear to look at it. Not after everything.

Inside, Gamma's incessant knock knock jokes reverberated through the empty halls. I tried not to think about my life here. I tried not to think about my friends roaming the halls, training together, lounging in the break room, enjoying the mess hall cookies…

"Good Lord," Gamma scoffed. "You do not even need me in here. You torture yourself just fine."

Wash glanced at me as I bit my lip. All of my coworkers—all of my friends had thrived here under the Director. That evil piece of scum had been the reason they had—they had…

My friends. Our footsteps seemed to echo their names through the dark, empty hallways. Georgia. York. Alabama. Utah. Delaware. All figures I had not dared to think about in years.

Then, we turned a corner to the residence hallway. My breath caught in my throat, and I could envision the ghosts of the Freelancers coming and going, trotting around to each other's rooms to talk, to laugh, to shut the doors mysteriously and bury themselves in the escapades so restricted by the Director…

I tried not looking at the doors as we passed, but could not help but stop in front of one. One that I had entered and exited a thousand times in years past. The boys paused and looked at me questioningly, but I ignored them and finally had the nerve to look up.

The door was blank.

I gasped and strode up to it, running my hands over the cool metal where the label had been. The neat black letters had been scratched off and the metal polished, now as flawless as if it had never been tainted to begin with.

I had been erased.

The Blood Gulchers began to talk at me, but Wash shushed them. I couldn't speak. The months I had spent here—the countless analyses I had processed and training procedures I had witnessed had been for nothing. I slammed the door open, and nothing was in the room. Not even my bed or my desk or a chair. I had, for all practical purposes, never existed at Project Freelancer.

Ignoring the rest of our group, I closed the door and continued down the hallway, my mind burning. Gamma was enjoying himself, of course, adding in an editorial with all his snarky comments.

"Just leave her alone," Wash whispered to the boys. For whatever reason, they decided to comply.

As we reached the laboratories and AI testing chambers, the horrible, sinking feeling in my stomach began escalating to a full-on ulcer.

We stopped in front of the entrance to the area labeled _AI Implantation _and I froze. No. No, no, no.

"I can't do this," I blurted, backing away from the door. "I can't go in there. No."

"Ells, you have to!" Tucker protested. "This is the only way—"

"No!" I shook my head fiercely. "You don't know—you don't know what I've—I've seen—what I've been through—"

"Yes, I do," Wash replied quietly. "I know better than anyone."

My jaw dropped. Did he—did he _really _just say that?

"Which is _why_—" My voice cracked. "You know. I can't. Go. In. There."

Wash looked at the others. Donut looked almost scared to see me in this state.

"We need a second," he said to them. "Alone." Without another word, he grabbed my hand and took me down the hallway and around the corner, far enough away to be out of earshot of the others.

"Eleven," Wash said, his voice low. "I know this is hard for you. It's hard for me too. What happened that day—we won't ever be able to recover from that. Ever. You and I—we just—" he struggled to find the right words. "We both died a little that day. But we can't keep running away from it. The only way to save you from Gamma—who will _make you relive everything again_—is to go in there and take care of this once and for all."

"Wash, please, I…" I looked down, and my hands were shaking. I tightened them into fists and rested them over my ribs. I swallowed and finally, finally admitted it: "I'm scared."

"It won't happen the same way it did for me," Wash said firmly. "I promise. We're taking an AI out, not putting one in."

I nodded and took a deep breath. "All… all right. I'll do it."


	22. Only Deceit, Part V

Without speaking, I walked back down the hall and wrenched the door to the implantation area open. The Blood Gulchers and Wash looked inside the room tentatively, but I strode right in. I knew that if I hesitated, my feet would not allow me to enter the area at all.

Simmons flicked on the lights, which turned on without problem.

I was back. The room had hardly changed. Whatever military officials and government investigators had come to disassemble the ship after the Director's arrest had either neglected this area of the ship or did not understand how to take it apart. I wagered on the latter, remembering how many staff members it took just to turn the advanced technology on.

My heart sped up just looking around the room. The steel operation table still lay in the middle, clean and open and awaiting its next victim. Wash swallowed hard as he stared around and then approached the main terminal. He examined the dark screens and black buttons, running his fingers over the machinery. His hands shook slightly, and I realized I was not the only one who was afraid.

"When it turns on, it should already be prepped for AI removal," Wash said Simmons fiddled with the controls. "Unless the government did something to change the settings."

"Like they could figure this out," Simmons grumbled. "It might not even turn on, and I can't figure out how to fix it. The wires are totally fried. Let's get the Engineer over here."

After extracting the Alien from Caboose's arms, Simmons placed it at the terminal. The Engineer settled into its wiring contentedly and began to work at the hard drive.

In far, far less time than I expected, the terminal lights began flickering. It sputtered and coughed and flashed into working order. The main screen shone with coding as the Engineer repaired the system, and Simmons began typing furiously into the computer, analyzing the changes.

"It's—I think it's working," he mumbled, his fingers flying. "Unbelievable. It's at seventy percent recovery. Good God, look at all this information."

"Careful," Grif said, rolling his eyes. "You might get a geek boner."

"It says here that it took at least twelve people to manage when it was functional," Simmons continued after an irritated glance in the orange soldier's direction. "Looks like the Engineer's handling it fine, though. Just shows how Aliens know what the hell they're doing sometimes."

"Don't get your hopes up just yet," Church said. "We have to see whether it actually works on Eleven, now."

"Great, I'm the guinea pig," I muttered, sliding onto the operation table. "This is exactly what I wanted to hear."

"Just relax," Wash said seriously. "The nerves—if you're nervous, that'll get in the way."

"Thanks. That's really going to help."

Working together from my memory, Wash's recollection, Simmons's tech experience and everyone else's willingness to help, we were able to figure out how to hook my brain and the AI chip to the system. The Engineer watched us curiously as the implantation system hummed at 88% recovery.

"Okay, you need to be under anesthesia for this to actually work," Wash said, rummaging through the cabinets. "There has to be some around here somewhere…"  
"Wait, wait!" I said. "But that's sort of a form of sleep. What if Gamma—"

"You're hooked up to the system," Simmons said. "It's already recognized Gamma as a foreign piece of tech. I've commanded it to take hold of Gamma once you're unconscious. He won't be able to do anything."

Gamma grumbled in my mind, which made me feel a little better.

I sighed as Wash extracted liquid anesthesia from the cabinets. I could not even complain about the medicine I was about to take—the shelf life was virtually unlimited, as was most of the anesthesia used on the ship. Going on long missions always required Project Freelancer to stockpile supplies.

"All right, Eleven, it's time," Simmons said as he examined the machine again. "The Engineer is stable and running the whole system. It's on the 'extraction' setting. Once you're asleep, that little wire sticking out of your neck will first cut Gamma's powers off by putting this bubble of protective coding around your psyche. Then, it'll transfer Gamma out of your head and into this storage unit. When he's gone, the chip won't be anything but a piece of metal in the back of your neck, and you can get that surgically removed once we finish the mission."

"How do you know all of this?"

Simmons chuckled nervously. "I'm using Training Mode on the machine here. I think it's supposed to be for med students in their residency. There's this whole list of legal jargon saying what might go wrong—"

"Let's not get into that," Donut said quickly. "Let's just get this process going. Ells, are you ready?"

I looked at them. No. No, I was not ready. A glowing, squishy purple ball of flesh connected to some wiring held my life—or, at least, my mind—in its hands. Furthermore, throughout this whole process, Gamma had been uncharacteristically quiet.

_"Do not mind me,"_ he said flatly, offering no further explanation.

"Is—is everything ready to go?" I asked for the tenth time. "Completely?"

"As far as I can tell, yes," Simmons nodded. "I mean, all we have to do is hit the Start button. Then, the machine will tell you at what moment you need to take the knock-out meds. Then the process will start. Easy." He paused as Wash handed me a small phial of the medicine. "…Right?"

"Okay. Just hit the start button." I couldn't take waiting anymore. My heart was fluttering and Gamma was still silent. The cup of anesthetic medicine shook in my hands. "Go."

Simmons hit Start.

A jolt of electricity shot through my veins. I did not even have time to scream in agony as the cup of medicine fell from my grasp, hitting the floor and splattering crimson liquid all over Wash's boots. My vision became hazy, and, as though through a large, rounded tube, I could only vaguely hear the sudden, horrified commotion that had started between figures clad in red and blue.

I did not recognize them. The technology they crowded around seemed to be beeping loudly in time with a red warning light, though my eyesight clouded and my sense of hearing seemed to shut down.

I only knew one thing for certain as my body slipped from control. One voice whispered in my ear—monotone and mechanical, yet feverish and excited.

_"Finally. It is time to revisit your past."_


	23. The Eleventh Hour, Part I

I breathed deeply, slowly waking from a restless sleep. Looking up, I saw he was already awake, his eyes wide, anxious, and staring at the ceiling. At registering my movements, he looked down and forced a smile.

"Morning, beautiful."

"Good morning." I hugged him tightly. "Did you get some rest?"

He shook his head.

"Me neither."

Neither of us had slept much during the night. Of course, part of that had _certainly_ been intentional, but even our embraces had seemed desperate and needy, as if it were the last—

No. No, he would be fine. The implantation would go well. Carolina had just been stupid. Wash wasn't scheduled for two AIs. He would only have one. We would meet up after the surgery and joke about his new inverted penis and how that would cause some problems for us at night.

We lay in silence for another few moments, my hand brushing lightly over his bare chest. I repeated in my mind everything the Counselor had explained to me during the briefing, attempting to reassure myself over and over again that Wash was completely safe.

After what seemed like just a few seconds, Wash squeezed me tightly and kissed the top of my head. "I have to get ready now." We both sat up and he stepped out of the bed, walking over to his closet and retrieving his uniform.

"So," I said, feigning casual disinterest. "Who are you going to choose to be your observer?"

Wash stopped and looked at me, chuckling. "Who do you think?"

I shrugged. "Well, I… North chose South, and York chose Carolina, so you might want a Free—"

"Don't worry, Ells," Wash interrupted, watching me intently. "I'm choosing you. You'll be in the observation room for the implantation. You'll see the whole thing."

I smiled a little in relief, though I knew the grin didn't reach my eyes.

"David…" I said slowly. After I pulled on my black under-armor layer, I stood up and hugged him, though he was only wearing half his armor. "I'm just… I'm so nervous for you."

Wash smiled sadly, attempting optimism. "Come on, you've seen all my stats. Hell, you created my stats. I'm trained for all this, and I'm only getting one AI."

"Stats are numbers on paper, and we don't know how each AI acts. This… this is different."

Wash forced a laugh. "Well, if I die, then that'll be one less person to annoy you all the time."

"Dave, you know that I—"

He interrupted me with a swift kiss, short but passionate.

"I'm going to be fine," he said determinedly.

"Promise?"

"Promise." He watched me for a moment and then broke the hug, reaching beneath his armor to grab a chain from around his neck. "Here," he continued, unclasping the chain and hooking his own dog tags around my neck. "See? I need those. I'll be coming back for them in a couple of hours."

I smiled and watched him finish dressing, finally in everything but his helmet.

"All right," Wash said finally, taking a deep breath. "It's time."

He needed to leave before me in order to prepare for the operation; after he informed the staff of his choice of observer, they would radio me just before the procedure and give me the security clearance to enter the implantation observation area. Wash embraced me briefly again and walked toward the door.

Just as he was about to exit the room, he stopped and turned to me.

"Ells…" he began. His lips then slowly formed the shape of my name… my real name. He whispered it. A pause. "I love you."

Without another word, he shut the door behind him.

* * *

The glass separating me from Wash seemed impenetrable. It was certainly bullet-proof and bomb-resistant, but it was blocking more than my physical form from him. As he lay on the operation table, the white-clad staff bustling around him, I felt farther away from him than I ever had since my mission aboard the _Mother of Invention_ had begun.

I wished I could not see the blurry reflection of my own helmet in the glass. It fidgeted every few moments, mocking my anxiety, reminding me that I had to hold still. Wash would be fine. He would be all right.

I rested my hand lightly upon the glass, biting my lip. The Counselor was there alongside the man himself. The Director. They stood beside Wash, speaking in low voices. Wash watched them gravely, nodding every few moments and affirming his understanding of their speech.

I could barely look at him. He lay there in full armor, but I had never felt him be so vulnerable. The medical staff seemed more preoccupied with the complex machinery in the operation room rather than the Freelancer himself. Wash did not look around the room, focused entirely on his superiors as they gave him last-minute directions. I knew that look. A look of determined respect; a look of duty to instill bravery.

Sometimes, I wished he were not so unquestionably loyal.

The Counselor, as if sensing my negative thoughts, looked over at me. The subtle knowing look in his eyes once he had realized who Wash had chosen to be his observer had not left his face, and I fought the urge to look away as he caught me in his gaze.

"Observer personnel, are you in position?" he asked. His monotone, a vapid, watery serenity, sounded through the speakers connecting the operation room and the adjoined observation area.

"Yes," I said.

"Agent Washington, do you understand the implantation procedure?"

"Yes."

"Very well." The Counselor looked around at the watching medical staff and nodded to the Director. "He is ready."


	24. The Eleventh Hour, Part II

"Hand me the Epsilon unit, please."

A purple storage unit transferred hands, and the Director examined it closely.

"Anyone with unauthorized electronics must submit them now," he said without looking up.

The staff glanced around, and one or two of them somewhat guiltily gave up cell phones or handed their forgotten radios to the Counselor, who held a bin out to collect the items.

"As you know, any unapproved technology may affect the process," the Director chastised. "If there are any other materials that may interfere, they must be removed now."

The Counselor looked around the room, and his eyes fell on the observation area. He leaned over and whispered to the Director's ear. Goosebumps rose on my arms as the Director's glasses flashed in my direction as well. He nodded once and then continued the preparations. The Counselor, on the other hand, strode into the observation deck.

"Agent Eleven," he said tonelessly. "Your armor is not standard issue."

"No, it isn't," I agreed. "It's specialized for my job, but it's still government-issued—"

"It has not been approved to be near the operation rooms and contains unauthorized technology. I must ask you to leave the observation deck."

"Wha—no, sir, please," I pleaded. "I have to stay here. I can't miss this. Agent Washington chose me to be here."

"Then you must remove your armor for the duration of the operation."

"I'll do it," I responded without hesitation. "I'll be fast. Where should I put it?"

I proceeded to experience the strangest two minutes of the mission thus far. The Counselor watched me quietly as I removed every piece of my armor, feeling somewhat exposed in only my black under-armor layer. I opted to keep my empty utility belt, however, after showing the Counselor that it contained nothing but my identification cards and money.

Of course, I kept the side compartment filled with my personal informational microchips and holographic data. I would not let those get into enemy hands.

When we reached the observation area again, the staff members were prepped and waiting for my return. I had a sneaking suspicion Wash refused to allow them to begin until I returned, as some of them dared to glare at me in irritation. As soon as I had gotten back into position, the process began.

"Sir, Agent Washington is prepped for Epsilon AI."

Wash looked around, his face a mixture of stoicism and anxiety. Part of me desperately wanted to make eye contact with him, and the other part wanted to avoid connecting with him at all costs. However, he made the choice easy: he seemed completely engrossed in the process, his hands clenched into fists as he watched the staff members run the myriad controls involved in the operation. The Counselor picked up the AI unit once more and connected it to a large machine, monitoring it closely as it flickered on and began flashing.

Wash turned to the side as a tiny chip was taken out of the storage unit. The Counselor watched the proceedings closely, focusing on keeping the unit stable. With great delicacy, the staff members began to drill into the base of Wash's neck; he did not flinch, so I assumed the anesthetic was working properly. The shrill whirring of the drill was enough to make me clench my jaw, however, as the blood began seeping from the incision.

With a tiny click, the metal chip connected to Wash's brain stem, and, for one beautiful moment, I thought that the operation had worked.

An ear-shattering roar echoed through the room.

It was unlike any sound I had ever heard before. Aboard the _Mother of Invention_, I had been introduced to a variety of strange noises. From the whirring of the ship to the murmurs of the people, I thought I had heard it all.

I had become accustomed to the very rhythm of Wash's being. I thought I was aware of every sound he could make. His whispers, the low chuckle of his laughter. The way his voice rose in pitch when uncomfortable and when he growled deeply in anger. His assertive grunts as he raised weights in the gym and the way his breath caught when my hands wandered. I had even heard occasional curses and yells of pain during training.

Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined the noise I now heard escaping Wash's mouth.

He screamed, a tidal wave of agony drowning us in sound.

The staff members jolted forward, attempting to calm him. I squealed and pressed my hands against the glass. No. This couldn't be happening.

"Agent Washington!" one of the medical staff said urgently. "You must calm down right away!"

Wash paid no attention. He released a choked howl of agony, staggering across the operation room and knocking over a tray of medical instruments.

The staff members attempted to block his path. My breath fogged up the glass as I gasped in horror; Wash swung at them, knocking a medical officer out cold with one violent blow.

"MAKE IT STOP!" he screamed, swiping at something only he could see. "STOP, STOP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP!"

Another med bay staff member lunged at him, but Wash threw him to the ground like a rag doll, shattering what looked like another expensive storage unit.

"Secure him!" the Director commanded. "Get him under control!"

Though the Director did not address me, I sprang out of the observation area and threw myself at the door leading to the operation room. It was locked. Try as I might to shove the door open, I could only watch as Wash continued to scream in pain, alternating between scratching at his own head and lashing out uncontrollably at the staff.

Wash then grabbed a scalpel. He drove the instrument into the arm of one of the staff, then faced the blade toward his own flesh.

I screamed, though no one could hear my cries.

"WASH!"

A particularly brawny med bay worker sprang at Wash. In a swift movement, he knocked Wash to all fours and shoved a needle into his spine. Though his tormented wailing did not abate right away, it soon dragged out into a pained moaning and the medical workers were able to shove Wash back on the operation table before he completely lost consciousness.

As Wash was carted out of the room, the Director, his brow furrowed, turned to the Counselor.

"Counselor," he said in a low voice. "I'd like to speak with him as soon as he wakes up."


	25. The Eleventh Hour, Part III

My fists, unused to banging against steel without amour, bruised as I pounded on the operation room door.

"Let me in!" I yelled as they carted Wash away through the back. "I need to see him!"

The Director ignored me, striding right to the medical bay after Wash's still body. The Counselor, however, approached the glass barring me from the operation room.

"The surgery has concluded," he said calmly, his unblinking stare as unnerving as ever. "Your services as Agent Washington's observer are no longer needed. Please return to your duties."

"What?" I yelped, pulling fruitlessly against the door handle. "No, Counselor, you can't be serious!"

"Return to your duties, Agent Eleven," the Counselor repeated. "Now, please."

Without another word, he turned from me and left the operation room with nothing but a small click as he locked the back door.

The moment I had stepped onto the _Mother of Invention_, one thing had run through my head: investigate. Find out what made the Director's actions illegal. Discover the secrets behind this strange operation he called Project Freelancer.

A different, once dormant part of my mind screamed. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing mattered but Wash. I had to find a way to get to him. All of the time we had spent sneaking around, brushing knees beneath tables, whispering warmly into each other's ears, creeping quietly down hallways at night—none of that mattered anymore. I didn't care whether the other Freelancers, the staff, or even the Director himself knew that I needed him. No longer was the secrecy anywhere in the equation; it had been thrown out of the mathematics as soon as Epsilon had been connected to Wash's brain. I had to see him.

With nothing but my under-armor layer and my nearly-empty utility belt, I left the observation area. The hallways seemed an endless maze of perfect stainless steal, the floors only too happy to echo my footsteps across the walls. Understanding the general layout of this area of the ship, I decided to circle around the area until I found some side entrance into the medical bay. I didn't even need to physically enter where Wash was; as long as I could hear some update, even just from staff members discussing it outside his room, I would be satisfied.

The doors directly leading to the med bay were locked. I wished some staff member would exit so I could talk my way inside with smooth words and wit—my code for "utter bullshit"—and figure out what was happening. I had no such luck as I waited outside the doors. Granted, I did not allow myself to stay outside for very long. Every moment I wasted was a moment I could be finding information on my Freelancer.

I continued snooping around. The doors marked _MEDICAL BAY: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY _screamed at me from every hall. I growled deeply in my throat, about to abate my search and just pound on the main doors until I was granted access. Perhaps they would get tired of my banging and just—

An unmarked door caught my eye. Every other was labeled and enormous. This one, squeezed between a janitorial closet and a set of air conditioning controls, was miniscule compared to its oversized siblings. However, the size was not what had attracted my attention.

The other marked doors were locked by the scanners recognizing authorized personnel. This one, however, was controlled by a pad riddled with symbols arranged in block-like patterns. Their Greek swirls were nothing new to me, and my urge to explore whatever lay on the opposite side of the room increased tenfold.

Now, I was thankful that I had not given up the tiny radio still lodged in my ear.

"York?" I asked quietly. "You there?"

"Hey, Eleven," the Freelancer replied. "I was actually just about to radio you. They just carted Wash in here!"

"What—how did you see that?" I asked. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the med bay with Carolina. Where are you?"

"Oh my God, do you see him? Is he all right?"

"I only saw him for about half a second before they took him to his own room, and he looks like hell. What happened?"

"I don't know. Something went wrong during his surgery. Listen, York, I need your help. They won't let me in the med bay. Can you get me inside?"

"They have cameras all over the place in here. They'd see for sure if I opened the door for you."

"Fine," I relented. "But I found another entryway."

"Yeah? So come on in."

"York. It's locked."

He chuckled. "Ah. That's why you need me. Give me the layout?"

I explained the Greek letters and the technicalities of the lock to him, and, when I was done, he fell quiet. I sat there for a moment, horrified. He couldn't do it. He couldn't unlock it.

"Oh man, this one's tough," York finally said, whistling. "I've only cracked the code about a million times before to break into the med bay." He was holding back laughter.

"York, I swear to God, when I get in there..."

"Type in the first letter of each AI produced from newest to oldest until you reach the halfway point. Then, you reverse it and type in the rest of the Greek letters from least recent to most recent."

"I'm not even going to ask how you figured that out," I muttered, punching in the correct order of Greek letters. To my utter relief, the door slipped open and I walked inside.

"You in the med bay now?" York asked. "Gotta know to get my ass out of here."

The door snapped shut behind me, and I was instantly shrouded in darkness.

"…No."

My eyes soon adjusted. A long, narrow hallway lay before me, running secretly right through the middle of the med bay. The walls were covered in dozens of whirring machines, small dials flickering everywhere I looked. The screens were only dimly lit, flashing their strings of codes every few moments.

"Well, where are you then?"

I walked forward. Some of the machines twinkled to life as I walked by as if curious about this mysterious intruder. Others were utterly black, dead to the world around them.

"Eleven? Eleven, where are you?"

"York, I need a second. I'm dropping the call."

I hung up and squinted at the walls, walking slowly down the aisle of machinery. From what I could tell, I had gotten into the med bay—but not at all how I had predicted. I could hear vague mutterings as people strode around me outside. They perhaps had no idea an entire room lay in between the walls of the med bay.

One of the monitors close to me flashed brightly, spraying pale blue streaks across the hall. I approached tentatively, expecting the computer to be covered in a layer of dust, but as I swiped my finger across the screen, no dirt lifted off into my hand. Someone—or multiple someones—had been in here recently.

Beside the screen lay a flickering red button labeled _DEACTIVATE HIBERNATION MODE_. With only a second's hesitation, I pressed it lightly. A low beep sounded from the monitor and it went black, followed by bright neon words flashing across the screen:

_Project Freelancer Artificial Intelligence Information Unit_

_Classified Material: Authorized Personnel Only_

_Medical Bay, Room 2120, Sector 84_

_Coordinates: 2-3894-123-2-1000002/2hf0830f_

_Touch Screen to Begin_


	26. The Eleventh Hour, Part IV

I tapped again, and the black screen instead displayed bright, overlapping blue folders with labels.

_AI EXPERIMENTATION_

_MISSION LOGS_

_PERSONNEL FILES_

_FINANCIALS_

_VIDEO SURVEILLANCE_

I opened the first file, a bead of sweat trickling down my brow. The file flashed green and expanded.

I stared at the screen. In front of me, _ALPHA_ flashed brightly alongside a string of code I could never hope to understand. As if they were DNA strands, the Alpha's digital makeup spun lazily, showing off its inner workings.

No. This… this wasn't right. I had seen all of this before. This was the Director's first AI—the one he had made as a duplicate of himself.

I began scrolling through the basic information of the other AIs. Their coding and statistics and personalities all flashed at me, useless information I already had gathered. Gamma was deceit, Omega rage, Delta logic. I just didn't know _how._

The Director had legally obtained Alpha. That much was certain. But how on Earth had he gotten all these other pieces of technology?

"Damn it," I muttered as I returned to the first screen for Alpha. The information pulsed slightly as I scrolled through the unintelligible coding. This was useless. This page was even missing information and—

Wait.

I checked the other AIs quickly before staring at the first screen again. In the line of text where all the other pages stated their AIs' prominent personality trait, this page had only one word:

_COMPLETE_

I pressed the word, and an entire new set of folders appeared before me. The top of the screen was titled _FRAGMENTATION RECORDS_, and each folder was labeled as a video file and a Greek letter.

I swallowed and pressed the one named "Epsilon."

A video popped up, paused in a single frame. An AI radiating pale light stood in some sort of digitally-created room, and a line of black text scrolled across the bottom of the screen: _Fragmentation Setting: Simulated Mission Failure; Inability to Complete Algorithms. Simulated Mission Results: Extermination of Agents. Monitored, proctored and recorded by Dr. Leonard L. Church._

Unable to comprehend the jargon, I did the simplest thing I could: I pressed the play button.

"Hello, Alpha."

The Director's voice reverberated from the video file, his dark southern drawl, though digitized, throwing shivers down my spine. Alpha walked forward, a glowing white mist.

"Director, please," it—or, perhaps, he—pleaded. "What is going on?"

"There was another incident. Security failed."

"I—is it the schematics?" Alpha asked desperately. "I just—they're too complex—I just need more time to work on them!"

"It's not your fault." The calmness in the Director's voice made my skin crawl.

"How can you say that? Of course it is! Was anybody hurt?"

"I am sorry. Yes. Washington and another died."

I gasped at the same time Alpha did as I heard a certain three syllables, my heart flipping. However, it affirmed my assumption—this entire situation was a lie. The Director had made up some sort of failed mission story to feed to Alpha.

"Who?"

"I can't say," the Director replied gravely.

"Who?" Alpha begged. "Who died?"

"Agent Texas."

"No!" Alpha screamed. "Augh—God, no!" The room flashed white as Alpha flickered in passion. His knees buckled and he shook. "Oh, no! God, no! No!"

The video trembled with Alpha's screams of agony, the whiteness of his glitches blinding me. I watched in horror as the Director's original AI bellowed in pain and began convulsing in electric white shocks. The AI's head began pulling away from itself, stretching, flickering, splitting in half. The rest of his body followed suit; soon, a second torso, set of arms and a pair of legs formed from the first. It began pulsing, not with white light, but with pale blue.

Two AIs now stood in the room, the agonized cries doubled in volume. One white—the Alpha—and one blue. The memory AI.

The video went black, with two words flashing before my eyes: _Fragmentation Complete._

I couldn't speak. I couldn't even move. Through torture—through simulated failures and deaths—the Director was _creating his own AIs_.

My hands shaking, I feverishly went back to the main menu and pressed the "Omega" video. The Director delivered electric shocks to the Alpha over and over again and his yells of agony soon turned to fury, and, as the rage-filled part of Alpha fragmented into its own entity, Omega's crazed, maniacal laughter filled the room.

This was it. This was what I had been looking for. What I had needed since my first footstep aboard the _Mother of Invention._

Without hesitation, I reached into my utility belt, extracting the largest information chip I possessed. I snapped it into place—to the memory drive—and dragged every single file to it. All of the fragmentation videos and AI coding—everything I needed to arrest the Director once and for all—finally came into my possession. I had it all. My mission was a success.

I held the information drive tightly in my hand, returning to the doorway through which I had entered. It was locked.

A thrill of nervousness shot through me, but I ignored it. The opposite end of the hallway also held an exit. My palm began sweating with my efforts at remaining calm. The fragile information chip lay delicately in my hand.

Outside the hallway, in the rooms of the med bay, I was suddenly aware of an increase in noise. The murmurs of the medical staff, before only a gentle hum melding almost perfectly with the monitors, heightened in register and volume.

The few lights that had guided my way around the hallway went black.

I froze. A coincidence. Some sort of technical failure. I was fine. Only the scattered monitors still lit my way down the hall, the computers flashing at me dully.

I began to creep down the hall, my stomach twisting into knots. My footsteps echoed loudly. I couldn't lose this flash drive. With this, I could save him. Wash's life depended on this. I could save him from the hell that was Project Freelancer.

I panted. I had to deliver this. I needed to get it to Hale. I couldn't afford to lose it. Not when everything I had come to know and love needed me.

I was so close to the other end of the hallway and began walking faster. I could almost hear my own heartbeat threatening to burst from my ribcage.

"Eleven, how close are you to the med bay?"

I yelped, the urgency in York's sudden radio call jolting me to a halt.

"I'm in a secret hallway in between the med bay rooms," I whispered. "I'm sorry, York. I can't talk—"

"I don't know what the hell you're doing, but you need to get out of there. I can hear them from the next room over. They're talking about you. They saw you steal something!"

"What?" I gasped. I sprinted back down the hallway to my original computer and navigated frantically to the main menu. Terrified, I opened the last item on the menu: VIDEO SURVEILLANCE.

I was not greeted with myriad folders containing videos of other times. Of other rooms. I was not greeted with another helpful menu describing my options.

A single window popped up, and my own face stared back at me. I lifted my gaze and stared right into the cold, dark eye of a hidden security camera.

"Oh my God."

The camera had been hidden in a corner of the computer among the array of dials and buttons. Its only distinguishing feature, now that I noticed it, was the flashing red light indicating it was recording.

"They—I can hear them," York continued, his voice hardly above a whisper. "They're—they're convincing him it's your fault. What the hell, they're whispering it in his ear. I can just make it out."

"Who?" I demanded. "Who, York?"

"Oh—oh, shit. They're sending him after you!" I heard a large clunk just on the opposite side of the wall. "Holy hell. I think they're—" he stopped, listening. "Jesus Christ. Run, Eleven_. RUN!"_


	27. The Eleventh Hour, Part V

The side entrance to the med bay exploded. A figure burst through the doorway, footsteps heavy and labored. The stream of light that entered the room vanished as soon as it had appeared; the doorway locked again. My only escape was gone.

A man in gray and yellow stalked toward me, his helmet thrown off and rolling across the floor.

"Wash?" I gasped. "W—Wash, you're awake! How—"

"You."

Hate emanated from that single word.

"Wash, I…" I had no idea what to say. "What happened to—"

"This is your fault!" he growled, taking a few steps toward me. I backed up immediately. "You're the one!"

"What are you talking about?"

"They told me. They told me. You did this! You ruined the procedure!"

"What?"

"It wasn't Epsilon. It was you. You stole the data they needed to make the surgery work!"

"Wha—no!" I squealed, backing up. "Wash, don't listen to them! You know I couldn't! I wouldn't do that!"

Wash took another heavy step toward me and suddenly buckled at the knees, grabbing at his head and howling.

"Make it stop, make it stop!" he screamed, tearing out chunks of his hair. "Stop, stop, STOP!"

"No! No, Epsilon, stop it!" I yelled.

He howled again in pain and charged at me.

As he reached me, I stepped out of the way and he crashed into the locked door behind me. I leapt behind him, staring at the horrible evidence of his behavior still embedded in the back of his neck.

"This isn't you!" I cried as he recovered, facing me again. "Listen to me, David! This is all Epsilon and all the Director! They're manipulating you! Making you crazy!"

"I am not crazy!" Wash raged, swinging a punch at my head as Epsilon dosed him with another shock of pain. "You! It's _you!"_

As Wash tried to punch me again, my racing heart sank to my toes. Reasoning with him was out of the question. The sixth most talented Freelancer was now aiming to kill—and the Director was watching it all.

Wash's fist swung inches by my head and I blocked it, skittering out of the way. As I struggled to avoid blow after blow, every other hit smashing painfully into my under-armor, I realized just how much York and the others had been teasing when they had made fun of Wash's lack of skill. I had been watching their training for months—tracking their skills in combat and weaponry and technology—and I never realized just how dangerous these soldiers had become. Comfortably protected by the observation deck or play-wrestling with Wash in the gym, he and the others had only ever been soldiers to me. Human.

This Wash was no human. Skin and muscle covered his bones beneath that armor, but the AI clouding his mind made the hate in his eyes the least human expression I had ever seen.

He was relentless. An endless stream of attacks hardly gave me the chance to defend myself, much less retaliate. The sweat poured down my brow as I silently pleaded with Wash just to see reason, but his yells—a half-conscious mixture of hatred and agony—continued to flow from his lips.

He lunged at me, his hands outstretched toward my neck like bloodthirsty spiders. Instead of leaping away, as my body desperately screamed at me to do, I ducked into his arms beneath his fists, cringing into his torso and standing up with an enormous uppercut with my rising momentum. Wash's jaw snapped upward. With the last burst of energy I possessed, I grabbed his mere seconds of weakness and stumbled out of reach, kicking Wash's legs out from beneath him. He crashed to the found with an ear-piercing, metallic screech and I turned to the penetrating eye of the video camera.

I held up the information drive, the dull glow of the monitor just outlining the piece of technology.

"You are_ finished_, Director," I snarled. "This is not legal. This is not moral, or ethical. This torture. This forced fragmentation. You won't get away with it. When I get this back to James Hale and the government, you can say goodbye to Project Freelancer."

A blow crashed into the side of my head from behind. Stars popped in front of my eyes as my legs gave out, the information chip falling from my hands.

The information drive and I crashed to the ground at the same time. As if in slow motion, though the haze of pain battering the side of my head, I watched the chip bounce once on the ground. I dimly registered the fact that it had not broken until a gray boot smashed on top of it.

The chip shattered to a million pieces.

"No!" I gasped, speed seeming to return to normal. My heart pounded in my ears, and I raised a shaking hand to the side of my head, where a large swelling was already starting to form. Such a blow would have done nothing more than irritate me had I been wearing my armor.

Washington approached me slowly, still twitching with Epsilon behind his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but his thoughts were cut off abruptly as he exploded into another fit of pain. He screamed and staggered to the side of the room, ripping a shard of metal from a console—a long pole with sharp, jagged edges at one end where it had connected to the rest of the technology.

"MAKE IT STOP!" Wash roared. Before I could protest—before I could even lift a finger—Wash swung the pole upwards like a golf club and smashed it down on my right side.

I heard it before I actually felt it. A sickening crack echoed through the room, and an explosion of pain burst from the right side of my ribs.

I screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed as Wash lifted the metal pole, scraping up a huge gash of under-armor fabric with it. It dangled like a dead bat from the pole and dripped with something dark.

I looked down at myself through blurred vision and saw enormous gashes pulsing with blood, some of the skin stripped away. I gasped, which seared another shot of pain to my side.

Every intake of breath hurt, which only made me scream more, which only made the pain worse. Wash was done. He had to be done. There was no pain worse than this. I tried to reach out to him, but his eyes bugged wildly, incapable of recognition. He just raised the pole again.

"Don't—"

My screams melded with his as he battered my side again. More cracks wracked my body. Over and over, Wash brought the pole down on the same spot. Almost blinded by the pain, I could only dimly register white shards now sticking up at awkward places. Then, I heard Wash throw the pole to the side, abandoning it and just pounding me with his fists.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. My mind became jumbled with only fragments of thought. I couldn't even beg Wash to stop. The pain—the pain. Too much. Wanted to die. Please. Please.

Please.

As if to grant my wish, my eyes rolled back. The darkness of my subconscious enveloped me.


	28. Aftermath, Before History

A high-pitched wailing was ringing in my ears. Someone was yelling very close to me, and I wished it would stop. It was so loud and screechy and agonized and—

It was me.

I opened my eyes. Bright fluorescent light flooded my vision, and I began gulping huge gasps of air.

I was lying in a large room with machinery all around. It was similar to a medical room, but the computers seemed far too advanced and for purposes other than healing. My blurred vision slowly came into focus, and several people stood in the room as well, staring at me. My vision glazed past a maroon soldier standing at the main computer and a red one with a shotgun before seeing a figure in pale blue and yellow. I almost looked past this one as well, but his helmet was off and I saw his face.

No.

No.

"NO!"

The people in the room tried to speak to me, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. Washington took a few steps toward me and I shrieked, crawling backwards and falling off the operating table. I smashed my elbow against the ground and cried out. The people rushed at me, but I had eyes for no one but the man in blue and yellow.

"Stop, stop stop!" I breathed in terror, struggling to crawl backwards on the ground away from him. "Please, no, no more, please, please!"

Tears filled my eyes and spilled over onto my face. I curled into a ball on the ground, sobbing, pleading with Washington. Someone kneeled by me and I jumped and began to struggle against him until I realized this soldier was pink. He was saying something in soothing tones. He then put his arms around me, and I didn't care. I just didn't care. I bawled into his shoulder, shivering.

"Please don't let him. Not again. Please, please, please…"

"Uh—he—he won't," the pink soldier replied. I looked up at him, my shallow breaths still panicked. He looked alarmed—almost afraid. "Eleven, you're back. Can you hear me? We got Gamma out. You're free."

I frowned. That didn't make sense. I hadn't gotten an AI. It was Wash—

It dawned on me.

"Donut!" I gasped, looking into his worried face. "It's _you!"_

I looked around the rest of the room. The Reds and Blues all stared down at me, scared and confused. Caboose was even hiding behind the Engineer, which floated serenely through the air. I gripped Donut's breast plate tightly, though my whole body was still shaking in a cold sweat.

"What the hell did you do to her!?" Church demanded, flickering in rage.

I slowly raised my eyes to Wash. His mouth hung open, his palms upturned. Though his stance was steady and firm, his eyes betrayed him—I had just snapped his heart in half.

"He—he just—" I stammered, unable to find the right words. "He was just—"

"It was me."

Wash's voice broke as he cut me off.

"What?" Tucker asked. He was dancing very near to Donut; I imagined he was ready to jump in between me and Wash again if the occasion called for it.

"It was me." Wash swallowed hard. "Her ribs."

Silence. Then, Sarge cocked his shotgun menacingly.

"You'd better explain yourself right now, Freelancer," he growled.

"It was an accident!" Wash's fists clenched as his voice cracked again. "I—Epsilon—it happened when they planted Epsilon into my head, and the AI tried to commit suicide. Don't you ever wonder exactly what it was that drove me 'crazy?' You've heard the stories about famous Agent Washington who went nuts. But you never knew. You never really knew.

"Once Epsilon was in my head, I couldn't control myself. I thought crazy things because they wanted me to. And when they found out Eleven had stolen the information she needed to arrest the Director, they told me that she had ruined the procedure. And I—or, hell, maybe it was Epsilon—believed it. I went after her. And…" His voice died before he could begin again. "And I remember it all. I remember everything. I was going to kill her."

I closed my eyes and leaned into Donut's cool armor as the others stared.

"The only reason they stopped me was because they heard that James Hale and his government officials were on their way. They rushed me away and waited as long as they could before bringing Eleven back to the med bay. Then, they took Epsilon out and… and blamed everything on me. They said that I just couldn't handle having the AI in my head and I hurt her on my own. I was pinned as clinically insane."

Wash didn't even say it with his usual bitterness.

"Wait, why didn't you expose the truth, Ells?" Tucker asked, cocking his head.

"I did," I said quietly. "But what could we do? I was the only eyewitness besides Wash, and they wouldn't listen to a mentally unstable Freelancer or a rookie Agent with no evidence. Hale believed me, of course."

As Wash continued talking, I allowed my exhausted brain to wander. It was free now. I didn't know how or why, but the second conscience that had invaded my mind was gone. So—of my own volition—I allowed myself to relive that fateful conversation with James Hale.

* * *

At first, I thought everything might have been a bad dream until I lifted my hand to my throat. To my despair, Wash's dog tags still hung around my neck.

He said he would need them back after the operation.

He _promised._

I was no longer in the _Mother of Invention_, but back at our government base's private hospital. I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye.

My voice sounded breathy and weak. Bandages were strapped all around my ribs and waist, and I couldn't even inhale without stabs of pain shooting down my right side. I wondered how much medication I was on to lessen the pain of the right side of my ribcage being turned inside out.

"We have to arrest the Director immediately," I insisted after Hale explained Wash's situation to me. I couldn't think about him now. I physically would not be able to handle it.

Hale shook his head. "Eleven, we cannot. We have no evidence of his wrongdoings."

"What are you talking about? I _saw_ him torturing the Alpha!"

"Yes. You saw him. One eyewitness account. That is not enough to create a formal warrant of arrest, Agent. You know that."

"But… but what about how Washington… how Wash—"

"The Director is claiming that his madness resulted from high levels of stress in training."

"This is bullshit!" I fumed, only dimly registering that I was using such language in front of my boss. "He watched Wash try to kill me—he caused it to happen!"

The Director was the core of it all. He had watched and waited for me to fall. Agent Eleven, the temporary staff member who had betrayed him. The one who now knew too much. The long, narrow hallway in which Wash had attacked was now no more than an execution ring in my mind, and the Director's excuses for my death—now just an injury—flooded my imagination. The personnel file titles flashed before my eyes: _Unstable Freelancer Attacks Coworker. Mentally Ill Soldier Unable to Handle Duties._

"Yes, he did. If Freelancer York had not overheard the conversation going on and hacked the communications system to contact me, you would likely be dead by now."

York. York had been the one to save me.

"I believe," Hale continued carefully, "that they were especially willing to allow Washington to attack you. They may have believed that you were starting to be a… detriment to the company."  
"What?" I yelped, causing a shooting pain just below my ribs. "I kept a low profile. I was obedient. I did everything you and the Director asked without so much as a hesitation."

"You did everything, and perhaps more?"

I fell silent, praying Hale did not mean what I thought he meant, and he sighed.

"It does not matter. We know what we know and must move on from there."

"So what do we do now?" I asked, eager to change the subject.

"You, Agent, will be discharged temporarily to recover from your injury. Study up while you are at the physical rehabilitation center; when you are completely healed, I want you to complete your Senior Officer Training and come back to me ready to finish what you started. You will be the best asset to assist me in arresting this beast of a man."

"Yes, sir."

"Meanwhile, I will continue to survey the situation as if nothing happened. We will pretend that you got amnesia from the injuries—and, with the severity of the accident, that is no stretch of the imagination. I will continue my duties as if I know nothing about the illegal AIs so as to gain full trust from the Director. He will even receive a file stating your medical conditions." He sighed again. "There is still much to be done. I can only hope that my position as Oversight Subcommittee Chairman will allow us to catch the Director once and for all."


End file.
